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Russian space firm working on satellites with flexible payloads

The project envisages resetting the operational modes to re-focus the retransmission power towards areas with the higher demand for data traffic

MOSCOW, November 29. /TASS/. TsNIImash, a leading research institute of Russia’s State Space Corporation Roscosmos will develop satellites capable of altering payload functions in orbit, Director of the Roscosmos Department of Long-Term Programs and the Sfera (Sphere) Project Sergey Prokhorov told TASS on Monday.

The research into creating flexible digital payloads will form part of the R&D work dubbed Digit, Roscosmos specified. "The efforts in this field will make it possible to create satellites with a high through-out capacity and the orbital payload re-configuration potential," he explained.

The project envisages resetting the operational modes to re-focus the retransmission power towards areas with the higher demand for data traffic, the Roscosmos official said.

TsNIImash, as the Roscosmos head research institute, will engage in the R&D work on creating prototypes of unified platforms (R&D work ‘Type Series’), a flexible digital payload (R&D work ‘Digit’) and onboard laser communication equipment (R&D work ‘Laser’). This work will be carried out as part of the Sfera project.

The Sfera program was outlined by Russian President Vladimir Putin during his annual Q&A conference on June 7, 2018. The project envisages launching communications and Earth’s remote sensing satellites. A source told TASS in December 2020 that the scope of the work for 2021 had been defined. In the fall of this year, Roscosmos Chief Dmitry Rogozin said that the Sfera program would embrace five telecoms and five observation satellite clusters.