MOSCOW. March 4 (Interfax-AVN) - The Council of Chief Designers discussed the issues of meeting contractual requirements to the quality of development and assembling of spacecraft and their elements during the meeting held at the Reshetnev research and production association of applied mechanics Thursday and Friday.
The meeting was attended by over 70 leaders of companies from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Rostov-on-Don, Krasnodar, Kaliningrad, Tomsk and Izhevsk, who are partners in spacecraft building. Regular spacecraft customers, including the Defense Ministry, the Russian Federal Space Agency and the Space Communications Agency, sent their representatives to the meeting, reads the press release of the Reshetnev association.
According to the release, the council heard the reports on the order and terms of development, assembly and launches of Express AM2, Express AM3, Express AM33 and Express AM44 satellites.
"The Express AM2 satellite is being prepared for the launch from Baikonur on March 30. Express AM3 is standing final tests at the Reshetnev association, and will be brought to the spaceport in early April 2005," the release reads.
After all papers are signed, the contract will come in force on development and assembly of Express AM33 and Express AM44, which was signed in September 2004.
"Apart from that, the council also discussed the terms of the Iranian ZOHREH project. Negotiations are underway now on documents to be signed to put the 36-month contract in force. The contract with Iranian Ministry of Information and Communications Technologies and a telecommunications company was singed by the Federal Space Agency and Aviaexport in Tehran on January 30, 2005. Reshetnev will be a subcontractor of the Federal Space Agency developing and assembling the ZOHREH satellite and ground-based control equipment," reads the release.