HARBIN. May 17 (Interfax) - Russia has created a full-scale orbital constellation and increased the service life of its satellites, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.
"I do not know, we should ask colleagues for how long Chinese satellites stay in orbit, but we have significantly increased the period of operation of our satellites in orbit, their service life," Putin told Chinese and Russian students and professors of the Harbin Institute of Technology.
Russia had to catch up with satellite deployment target for years, but the orbital group was never complete, Putin said. "As we launched new satellites, some others had to be removed from orbit. In the end, there was a serious talk within the government, with the Finance Ministry," he said.
The need to deploy a certain number of satellites and to create a full-scale orbital constellation was noted in that conversation, Putin said. "This is always a matter of budget financing. Nevertheless, we made a decision and created a full-scale orbital constellation," he said.