BERLIN. May 12 (Interfax-AVN) - The Federal Space Agency has informed the Russian leadership that the national orbital group must be improved both qualitatively and quantitatively, head of the Agency Anatoly Perminov said on Wednesday.
"At the conference which the Russian president held together with the industry's leaders, we came up with the proposal to improve the orbital group both qualitatively and quantitatively," Perminov told Interfax-Military News Agency at the ILA 2004 aerospace show in Berlin.
The Russian orbital group consists of about 100 spacecraft, he said. Half of them have a military purpose, 30 percent a dual purpose, and the rest an economic purpose.
Speaking about the qualitative improvement of the orbital group, Perminov noted that he was primarily referring to the extension of spacecraft's service lives.
"Unfortunately, not all the enterprises which produce spacecraft can manufacture them on a high quality level. The service life of our spacecraft is still three to four years, while the West orbits satellites with a service life of seven, ten or 12 years," Perminov said.
"Speaking specifically about Russian enterprises, those that meet global standards are the Applied Mechanics Research and Production Association and the Energia space rocket corporation," he noted.
As to the necessity to increase the number of satellites, Perminov stressed that it was necessary to pay more attention to research spacecraft. He said that a decision was made to hold a special conference on this issue, where ways to attain this goal will be discussed.
"Science can never advance using only extra-budget funds. We need budget funding, and they must be assigned in the 2005 budget," he said.
According to Perminov, creation of dual-purpose spacecraft is the most important workstream.
"We have reported to the president that as many as possible dual-purpose space systems must be manufactured. The whole world is following this path, while we have a tendency of dividing military and civil systems, though, in fact, they are identical," Perminov said.
He noted that funding sources for military and civil space programs must be unified as much as possible. The issue will be settled soon, he said.
"All the proposals addressed to the country's leadership have been upheld, and serious changes may be made," the official concluded.