MOSCOW, January 03, 16:17 /ITAR-TASS/. One of the main guidelines in the development of the Russian Aerospace Defence Forces will be improvement of facilities of the Russian space command and control infrastructure to intensify information processing on the situation in space, Aerospace Defence Forces spokesman Colonel Dmitry Zenin told Tass on Friday.

“Within the next few years, the Main Space Intelligence Centre will receive new radar facilities, optoelectronic equipment, advanced electronic control facilities, which will make it possible to sizably expand capabilities of the national space control system for ensuring the safety of Russia’s space activity and its national security on the whole,” Zenin said. He did not specify, however, what armaments the Aerospace Defence Forces would be equipped with.

Summing up the results of 2013, he said, in particular, that the Main Space Intelligence Centre had issued six warning as space objects were coming dangerously close to the International Space Station and 20 warnings about their coming close to other space vehicles. It controlled the placing into orbit of about 130 space vehicles and monitored about 150 space objects. It also controlled the termination of orbital lifetime of more than 140 spacecraft.