First Marafon-IoT satellites to be launched in H1 2025 - Roscosmos head

MOSCOW. Dec 24 (Interfax) - Marafon-IoT satellites of the Sfera federal project are due to be launched in the first half of 2025, Roscosmos head Yury Borisov said.

"The first Marafon satellites were built this year, they are due to be launched in the first half of next year," Borisov said in an interview with the Rossiya-24 television channel (VGTRK).

Roscosmos said in September 2023 it had signed a government contract with JSC Reshetnev for construction of 132 satellites for the Marafon low-orbit system. The constellation will be servicing aircraft and mobile Internet networks. According to a presentation by Reshetnev General Director Yevgeny Nesterov, it was planned to build 271 satellites of the series in 2024-2030.

Roscosmos said in February 2024 that the launch of the first demonstration satellite of the Marafon-IoT series had been delayed for additional software tests. It was supposed to be a supplementary payload to the Meteor-M 2-4 hydro-meteorological satellite launched from the Vostochny Cosmodrome on February 29, 2024.

Pavel Cherenkov, general director of Gonets Satellite System (Sfera project operator) said on April 4 that two Marafon-IoT satellites would be launched before the end of 2024.

The Sfera orbital group will consist of five communication satellite clusters, namely, Yamal, Express-RV, Express, Skif and Marafon, as well as five remote sensing satellite clusters - Berkut-Kh, Berkut-O, Berkut-VD, Berkut-S and Smotr, and a cluster of Grifon low-orbit global monitoring mini-satellites.