MOSCOW, February 15. /TASS/. The company Barl has launched work on creating the ground-based infrastructure for the Arktika-KN cluster of satellites, Barl Chief Designer Valery Labutin said on Monday.

"The work on building the ground-based infrastructure [of the Arktika-KN constellation] has begun and we have started developing the payload for this satellite," the chief designer said at a roundtable discussion in the Federation Council’s Committee on Economic Policy on the prospects of commercial space programs.

The cluster’s satellites will have a resolution of 40 meters in the visible range and 60 meters in the infrared range. The satellites will have an active service life of eight years, the Barl chief designer said in his presentation.

"AIS equipment will be mounted on satellites, which will make it possible to get information on shipping routes," the presentation says.

Russia’s State Space Corporation Roscosmos Chief Dmitry Rogozin said at a government meeting chaired by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin in October 2020 that there were plans to create a cluster of Arktika-KN satellites to monitor the Northern Sea Route. As the Roscosmos head said at the time, the satellite constellation would be capable of getting information in various bands and could be set up as part of state and private partnership.