Ministry wants to cover Arctic with 90 bln rbl satellite connection

SABETTA, Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District, Jun 14 (PRIME) -- Russia’s Communications and Mass Media Ministry has suggested creating a 90 billion ruble group of satellites on highly elliptical orbits to provide the Arctic with connection, Minister Nikolai Nikiforov said on Wednesday at a meeting.

“These won’t be synchronistic apparatuses, but a separate constellation. The volume of total investment is about 90 billion rubles,” Nikiforov said.

The payback part constitutes 30–40 billion rubles, and about 50–60 billion rubles are needed as basic support including money from the federal budget.

The ministry understands the budget’s limits, but will prepare everything for the project to be realized perhaps later.

“We see a direct problem with data transfer. There is a very restricted throughput capacity of channels. Russia has a sufficient connection satellite constellation on the geostationary orbit, but it is almost above the equator and the northern zone is covered by these satellites tangentially with the ultimate latitude for us of 76 degrees,” the minister said.

The town of Sabetta, where Russia’s largest LPG plant is being built, is located at 71–72 degrees, and it is almost the technical frontier for coverage by satellite connection, as Nikiforov said.

(56.9096 rubles – U.S. $1)

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