MOSCOW, October 27. /TASS/. Russia’s space corporation Roscosmos is faced with the task of launching the serial production of space satellites, CEO Yury Borisov has said.
In an interview with the Rossiya-24 TV news channel he explained that the current rate of satellite production in Russia was far below that in other countries.
Borisov stressed that the assembly line production of satellites required common standards, unified technical solutions, less diversity of components and a standard set of space instruments.
"The leading powers took care of this in advance. They created mass production technologies. The United States, according to our estimates, is capable of making about 3,000 vehicles per year. China has created six production facilities that are now able to deliver 1,200-1,500 vehicles per year - in contrast to Russia’s 40. Just compare. We are not competitive. That is why we are facing a tremendous task - to turn the tide, to devise a new industrial model that will enable us to mass produce as many satellites as the country needs to provide the services that I’ve mentioned," Borisov stated.
He said that the Krasnoyarsk-based Information Satellite Systems Reshetnev Company (ISS-Reshetnev, part of Roscosmos) is expected to have facilities for the serial assembly of about 125 satellites a year up and running by 2025. The Lavochkin Association is working on a similar facility.
However, "this is not enough," Borisov said, adding that the space industry was facing a task of making 200-250 satellites a year by the 2025-2026, and stepping up the output further to 400 per year by 2030.
"We will have to revamp the entire cooperation model and to retune it for serial production purposes. It's quite a challenge for us. But if we don't do this, we may seriously lag behind in the development of the entire space industry. Not only China and the United States, but also by Britain and India and maybe other countries will overtake us by the 2030s. We must not let this happen," Borisov said.