The Russian Federation will develop and build its own system of orbital radar satellites. This decision was prompted by Western sanctions, which put an end to technical cooperation with the Franco-German corporation Airbus Defence and Space, which possesses the necessary technologies for remote sensing of the Earth.
Initially, the Russian Ministry of Defense planned to purchase a new radar system from Europeans and then install it on a Russian satellite platform. However, despite the contract being valued at almost 1 billion euros, it was vetoed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
As a result, the Kremlin decided to create such a system from scratch, and the Lavochkin Scientific and Production Association believes that Russia has all the necessary capabilities for this.
The system is based on an active phased array antenna for an onboard radar station. According to available information, the preliminary design will be based on five spacecraft. The first launch, according to Izvestia, is scheduled for 2019.
"In early 2015, the Military-Industrial Commission decided that we would develop the system ourselves, after which an interdepartmental roadmap was agreed upon at the military-industrial complex level... According to the preliminary design, the system will be built on five spacecraft, with the first launch scheduled for 2019. The key element of this system is the active phased array (APAA) for the onboard radar. Russian manufacturers have essentially mastered the technology for creating APAAs, but there are gaps—we don't yet know how to make a transmitting and receiving module for the APAA."- Izvestia wrote on Thursday.
