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      Russia renamed its ambitious satellite program after Putin misspoke its name

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Friday, 27 October - 13:20

    Russia President Vladimir Putin and Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin shake hands during a meeting at the Konstantin Palace.

    Enlarge / Russia President Vladimir Putin and Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin shake hands during a meeting at the Konstantin Palace. (credit: Mikhail MetzelTASS via Getty Images)

    It was always abundantly clear that the leader of the Russian space corporation Roscosmos from 2018 to 2022, Dmitry Rogozin, sought to kowtow to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Now we have an anecdote from Putin himself that highlights how much.

    The story concerns a satellite constellation now known as Sfera (or Sphere, in English), a modestly ambitious constellation of 264 satellites. The Sphere constellation is intended to provide broadband Internet service from middle-Earth orbit to Russia as well as high-resolution Earth observation satellites.

    As is usual with Russian space projects, because they tend to be poorly funded, the timeline for Sphere's deployment has been delayed and its scope reduced. It also underwent an unscheduled name change. Prior to 2018, this satellite program was known as Ehfir (Ether), a reference to the invisible substance once thought to fill the universe and the medium through which light waves propagated.

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      Dmitry Rogozin may be in some trouble in Russia

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Monday, 5 December, 2022 - 14:42 · 1 minute

    Dmitry Rogozin, second from left, has been active in the Donbas region of Ukraine.

    Enlarge / Dmitry Rogozin, second from left, has been active in the Donbas region of Ukraine. (credit: Dmitry Rogozin/Telegram)

    It has been nearly five months since Dmitry Rogozin was sacked as director general of Roscosmos, the Russian state-owned space corporation. Later, a Russian space official acknowledged that Rogozin was removed from this high-profile post to ease tensions with NASA and other partners on the International Space Station. It has worked, as international spaceflight relations have improved.

    Since his dismissal, it has been speculated that Rogozin might take some sort of leadership position in Russian-occupied areas of Eastern Ukraine. This has yet to happen, however, so Rogozin declared himself the head of the "Tsar's Wolves" inspection group of volunteers. Rogozin's stated aim has been to test and supply the advanced weapons technology needed by Russian troops to win the war.

    As part of his efforts, Rogozin has been posting images and statements to his Telegram account from the Donbas region of Ukraine, visiting with troops. To look the part—and, knowing Rogozin, likely to build up his image as a "tough guy"—Rogozin has also posted images of himself dressed up as a soldier. At times, however, Rogozin's actions have looked more like cosplaying than anything else, and some Russians (as well as prominent former NASA astronauts ) have taken to mocking the Russian politician who was once close to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

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      As rumors swirl about his future, Russia’s space chief darkens his rhetoric

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Wednesday, 13 July, 2022 - 15:44

    A warmly dressed man in a hardhat.

    Enlarge / Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin really knows how to fill out a hard hat. (credit: Yegor Aleyev / TASS via Getty Images )

    Rumors on Russian social media networks and in select publications are swirling that the bombastic director general of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, will soon lose his position.

    The Interfax news agency reports that Deputy Prime Minister Yury Borisov, who oversees the Russian space and defense industry, may be moved into the leadership of Roscosmos. Separately, Telegram channels have been citing other media making similar claims about Borisov and Rogozin.

    To be clear, these remain rumors. And this is not the first time that speculation has intensified about the future of Rogozin, who took over command of Roscosmos—a sprawling, state-owned corporation responsible for the vast majority of Russia's spaceflight activities—four years ago. His has been a troubled and controversial tenure which, in addition to heated and destructive rhetoric, has seen the reliability and launch rate of Russian space vehicles decline.

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      Russia and Germany are fighting over an X-ray telescope in space

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Monday, 6 June, 2022 - 14:50

    Artist's impression of the Spektr-RG spacecraft carrying the German ‘extended ROentgen Survey with an Imaging Telescope Array’ (eROSITA) X-ray telescope and its Russian ART-XC partner instrument.

    Enlarge / Artist's impression of the Spektr-RG spacecraft carrying the German ‘extended ROentgen Survey with an Imaging Telescope Array’ (eROSITA) X-ray telescope and its Russian ART-XC partner instrument. (credit: German Aerospace Center)

    Launched in 2019 on a Proton rocket, the Spektrum-Röntgen-Gamma telescope is arguably the most significant space science mission built and flown by Russia since the dissolution of the Soviet Union more than three decades ago.

    The 1.2-ton Spektr-RG spacecraft, located about 1.5 million km from Earth in a halo orbit, is an advanced X-ray observatory designed to detect and map galaxy clusters as well as supermassive black holes. The concept for the spacecraft originated during the Soviet Union, but like a lot of major space projects, it was set aside during the USSR's collapse.

    The Russian space corporation, Roscosmos, eventually picked up the idea and partnered with the German space agency, DLR, on the mission. Under the plan, Russia would build the Spektr-RG spacecraft and launch it, whereas the Germany-based Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics would design and build the primary instrument on board, named eROSITA. This instrument took its first observations in late 2019 and was intended to conduct a seven-year survey.

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