MOSCOW (RIA Novosti) - Russia's space agency chief said Wednesday the U.S. is running half of the world's satellite fleet, but highlighted Russia's role in managing the international orbital station and building new pads for launch vehicles.
"Out of about 950 spacecraft, the U.S. owns over 450," Anatoly Perminov, head of the Russian Space Agency, said in an online briefing.
He highlighted the growth of third-party space launches from Russian sites and the expansion of the global launch network for Russian space rockets as Moscow's most recent successes.
"[Russia] accounts for about 40 percent of annual space launch activity. Of 94 new satellites orbited across the globe this year, 16 were Russian," he said.
"Russia also plays a key role at the International Space Station, providing [long-term] crews and cargo," Perminov said. He also vowed Russia would launch a Soyuz vehicle from the new pad at the Kourou space center in French Guiana in less than two years.
"We will have facilities delivered to French Guiana as early as this fall, and the first Soyuz-ST launch is planned for spring 2009," he said.
On Tuesday, a Russian Cosmos 3M carrier rocket launched from the Plesetsk space center in northern Russia has put a German SAR-Lupe satellite into orbit, a spokesman for the Space Forces said.
"The satellite was put into orbit at 00.06 a.m. Moscow time," Alexey Zolotukhin said.
It is the second time Russia has launched a German military spacecraft from the Plesetsk space center. Russia's Space Forces successfully conducted the first SAR-Lupe launch in December last year.
In 2003, Russia's state arms exporter Rosoboronexport and German COSMOS International Satellitenstart Gmbh (a subsidiary of OHB Systems AG) signed a contract to launch five SAR-Lupe satellites until 2009.
The German satellite system is designed to provide high-resolution radar images to NATO military commanders in Europe. It offers a spatial resolution of less than 1 meter, and allows imaging at night and through clouds.
The Cosmos-3M is a liquid-fueled two-stage rocket, first launched in 1967, with over 410 successful launches to date. The booster has been designed to lift a payload of up to 1500 kg.
