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Sfera-V

The Russian Defense Ministry was forced in February 2016 to order four additional Meridian communication satellites from the industry due to the fact that the promising Sfera-V vehicles planned to replace these satellites turned out to be too heavy for existing launch vehicles. Problems with import substitution, and, in particular, in terms of the electronic component base, led to a significant increase in the mass of the Sfera-V type devices.

It so happened that the Proton-M and Angara-A5 carrier rockets that currently exist in Russia are unable to launch satellites of this type into a high-elliptical orbit. So the Ministry of Defense was forced to request an additional 14 billion rubles for the purchase of four Meridian-type satellites to maintain the orbital constellation of this system. It currently includes four satellites.

According to information from open sources, the first Sphere-B spacecraft was supposed to replace the Meridian in 2018. However, due to technical difficulties, its launch will take place no earlier than 2021. In turn, the "Sphere-V" launch is planned to be carried out with the help of the next modification of the Angara-A5 heavy launch vehicle, which has yet to be developed, and on which a stake has been made in the draft Federal Space Program for the period from 2016 to 2025.

Earlier, the head of the Scientific and Technical Council (STC) of Roscosmos, Yuri Koptev, admitted that the available capacities of Russian launch vehicles are no longer enough to solve problems in the interests of the Russian Ministry of Defense. "We already have questions about the military, when we cannot fulfill their requirements in full due to the fact that we receive a mass of a satellite that is not provided with the rocket's energy," said the head of the Roskosmos NTS.

According to available data, with the help of the Angara-5 launch vehicle it is possible to launch a payload weighing 3.7 tons into a geostationary (highly elliptical) orbit. A similar indicator for the Rus-M launch vehicle, the development of which has been suspended. The time of the previously proposed Energia-3K launch vehicle, which could be created on the basis of the Zenit launch vehicle and the 800-ton RD-171 engine, is 5.2 tons. Perhaps these proposals will be implemented when creating a family of launch vehicles such as "Phoenix", which provided the project FKP-2025.