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Roscosmos to determine orbit of new space station during preliminary design phase

Dmitry Rogozin stressed that he would opt for the station to be placed in an orbit having an inclination of 97-98 degrees which means creation of an independent space station without using modules from the ISS

KUBINKA /Moscow Region/, August 24. /TASS/. The inclination of the yet-to-be created Russian Orbital Service Station's orbit will be determined during the preliminary design phase, the CEO of Roscosmos corporation, Dmitry Rogozin, said on the sidelines of the international military-technical forum Army 2021 on Tuesday.

He said that last Thursday he sent a letter to Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov containing a detailed roadmap of the project and related materials prepared by the presidium of Roscosmos's Scientific-Technical Council.

"The preliminary design project will determine where ROSS will be placed: either in an orbit with an inclination of 51.6 degrees (by means of adding modules from the Russian segment of the International Space Station) or in an orbit having an inclination of 97-98 degrees (creation of an independent station)," Rogozin said, adding that he personally would opt for the latter variant.

"We are asking the government to approve our approach and give us an opportunity to promptly start working on the station's preliminary design," Rogozin said. He stressed that Russia needed a station capable of scanning the Earth's entire surface, with a special emphasis on the North Pole.

Earlier, he discussed with the space rocket center Progress and the Research Institute of Precision Instruments (an affiliate of the holding company Russian Space Systems of the state-run corporation Roscosmos) the possibility of creating radars for the station based on technologies for the satellite Obzor-R.

"The radar will be able to see everything that is happening in the Arctic zone, and also in any other region, where clouds might hinder monitoring," he said.

The station will have multi-spectral equipment and a strong radio line, capable of transmitting data to the Earth online.

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