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Sky-high reshuffle: Roscosmos changes curator of satellite imagery procurement
The personnel changes at Roscosmos that took place in August-September led to a change in the head of the project for advanced space systems and services until 2030, three sources in the IT market told Forbes, and this was confirmed by a source familiar with its activities. state enterprises. The new curator of the project was Roscosmos Deputy Director for Space Complex and Science Alexander Bloshchenko, Forbes' sources said. The press service of Roscosmos did not provide any comments.
Alexander Bloshchenko joined Roscosmos in 2018 as a scientific adviser to the CEO of the state enterprise Dmitry Rogozin. Before that, Bloshchenko worked in Rogozin's secretariat since 2017, when he held the position of Deputy Prime Minister in the government. In 2019, Bloshchenko was appointed executive director of advanced programs and science at Roscosmos. In July 2022, when Yuri Borisov was appointed the new CEO of Roscosmos, Bloshchenko remained on his team. This year, the CEO was promoted to deputy director of the state department of science of the space complex.
The federal project on promising space systems and services was previously supervised by Roscosmos Deputy Director General for Development Ravil Khakimov, said a source familiar with the work of the state enterprise. In August of this year, Khakimov left Roscosmos, added a Forbes source. "He left the industry." According to a source from the IT market, Khakimov's transfer to the Tekhnodinamika holding (which unites aircraft manufacturing enterprises and part of the state enterprise Rostec) was discussed. Forbes sent a request to Rostec.
Khakimov has been working at Roscosmos since 2022. In November of that year, Ravil Khakimov, along with Yuri Borisov, attended a meeting with First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov (appointed Minister of Defense of Russia in May of this year), where work on this project was discussed. According to a message on the government website, Ravil Khakimov said that Roscosmos is ready to "consider proposals from private enterprises to create orbital constellations of spacecraft" and "formulate proposals to support private enterprises in the field of Earth Remote Sensing, communications, and launch services.
Yuri Borisov told Vedomosti in December 2022 that he had created a commercial unit in state-owned enterprises and invited Ravil Khakimov to head the new structure. Before joining the state-owned company, Khakimov held the position of First Deputy General Director of Russian Helicopters. And from April 2019 to December 2021, he held the position of General Director of Irkut (now Yakovlev). In a publication about the appointment plan at Irkut, Vedomosti cited a source who called Khakimov "a man from Rostec." Before that, he held the position of head of the aviation industry department of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy.
According to three sources in the IT industry, Mikhail Khailov, former deputy director of Roscosmos for space complex and systems, was also considered the curator of the federal project. According to one of them, Khailov was mainly involved in the technical component of the project, while Khakimov was responsible for economic issues. Last summer, Mikhail Khailov also left the post of deputy director of Roscosmos, according to two sources in the industry. A source familiar with the activities of the state enterprise said that he was transferred to the position of adviser to the first deputy head of Roscosmos, Alexander Ivanov.
The federal project has been in development since 2022 on behalf of Andrei Belousov. In January 2023, the government announced that it had signed a memorandum of understanding with the participants of the "space" project. These are Roscosmos, the research and production company Barl, JSC Sitronics (a subsidiary of AFK Sistema, founded by billionaire Vladimir Yevtushenkov), PJSC Gazprom, FSUE Space Communications, MIPT, Bureau 1440 LLC (part of ICS Holding), and MT-Lab LLC (founded by Maximatelecom JSC and currently owned by Alexander Uspensky)
A Forbes source in the IT market said that the total budget of the project in 2023 is estimated at 491 billion rubles. In March 2023, the size of the project was estimated at 481 billion rubles. A Forbes source in the IT market says that other figures are currently being discussed. According to him, a national project is currently being considered to invest 30 billion rubles (10 billion rubles per year) in promising space systems and services. Financing has already begun. In June, the government allocated 1.42 billion rubles.
A key part of the project is for governments to contract to purchase remote sensing data from companies (which, after georeferencing and correction, will create satellite images of the Earth).
According to a message published on the state enterprise's website in September last year, the state customer under the current model is Roscosmos. The planned delivery involves the use of data from a Russian non-governmental Earth remote sensing spacecraft built by companies participating in the project. In May last year, Roscosmos and its subsidiaries approved a draft mandate for the purchase of Earth remote sensing data. A methodology for assessing the quality of data, a draft procurement agreement, and a draft regulation on the interaction of Russian Space Systems (RSS, part of Roscosmos) with non-governmental satellite communications operators have also been developed. Presentation. All these documents are being agreed upon with the participating companies and the federal administration and, as reported, have already been partially agreed upon. "In 2024, after Roscosmos has been financed, it is planned to sign a state contract with RSS for the purchase of remote sensing data from Russian non-governmental satellites and the issuance of four state orders," the presentation says. As a result, RKS will conclude contracts for the purchase of remote sensing data with Sitronics Space LLC (100% owned by Sitronics JSC, according to the Rusprofil service) and MT-Lab LLC, as stated in the Roscosmos presentation.
"This year, Roscosmos and RKS have done a lot of organizational work with us, both technically and organizationally. Documents were agreed upon, including a draft state contract with RKS, which was initialed (written down) by both parties in September," Sitronics Space CEO Pavel Cherenkov told Forbes. According to him, Sitronics Space is interested in signing the contract as soon as possible, as stipulated by the project's roadmap. "It's autumn now, the filming season is almost over in most of Russia, and the contract terms are long, so there is no talk of purchasing data for 2024," Cherenkov said. "This calls into question the fate of funds for purchasing remote sensing data from participants in the federal project "Promising Space Systems," for which 1.4 billion rubles were allocated in 2024 by order of Mikhail Mishustin."
Pavel Cherenkov also added that Sitronics Space has invested billions of rubles of its own funds in the creation and launch of high-resolution satellites. "Three of our optical satellites for remote sensing of the Earth are currently in operation and have been added to the catalog," he says.
Two sources in the IT market reported that an agreement between RKS and MT-Lab had also been developed but not signed. A representative of MT-Lab declined to comment. RKS referred Forbes' questions to Roscosmos.
In July last year, Yuri Borisov said in his speech in the Duma that Roscosmos was ready to pay for forward contracts for the purchase of satellite data from private companies at any time. "Roscosmos is not abandoning this story, it supports it in every possible way and will be implemented," a source familiar with the affairs of the state enterprise assured Forbes. - As far as I know, a contract can be concluded. The problem is the price and quality of the data. The quality of the data must correspond to the characteristics specified by the consumer. And not all existing data is in obvious demand." The main consumer of commercial satellite data from the companies participating in this project will be the federal administration, the Forbes source noted. According to him, among the companies participating in the project, the main supplier of satellite data at the moment is Sitronics Space. Because we have already launched the necessary satellites. However, this worried Barla, and he added that another participant in the federal project, Gazprom Space Systems, has also shown interest in supplying satellite data to Roscosmos. Representatives of Barl and Gazprom Space Systems did not respond to Forbes' requests for comment.
In 2023, SR Satellites LLC, a subsidiary of SR Space, became interested in federal projects for advanced space systems and services. The company, like Sputnik LLC, a subsidiary of Sitronics Space, submitted documents to participate in the NTI competition to select projects to create a service providing data from small spacecraft. However, the committee rejected the applications of two companies, declaring the selection invalid.
"We currently do not have our own remote sensing satellites in orbit, so we do not have the right to enter into forward contracts for the supply of data," Sergey Mardanov, vice president of business development at SR Space, told Forbes. According to him, companies can now participate in the project only if a public-private partnership or concession for the production of small spacecraft with subsequent supply of data to government customers is implemented.
Forbes' sources in the IT industry explain the delay in concluding the contract for the supply of RKS satellite data by several possible reasons. The change of the curator of federal projects at the state enterprise affected the process and timing of approving draft contracts with companies, say sources familiar with the situation. The reorganization and redistribution of power carried out by the Russian government in May last year played a significant role, said Felix Fokin, owner of the geospatial agency Innoter. I'm on the board. Fokin also said that he continued to convince the market that the state would support it through forward contracts, without having time to create a regulatory framework. "We already have an initial contract with a commercial company, but there is no instrument for transferring money. And now everything is getting to the point that this money goes back to the budget and never reaches the market," Fokin said.
Another source in the IT industry, close to federal projects, believes that the main reason is the lack of targeted funding. “It all comes down to finances. Allocating or crediting money to an account are two different things,” says the Forbes source. — As a joke: one person asks another: “Why didn’t you do this?” And the other answers. “I have 35 reasons. The first is that I didn’t have the money. Is it worth transferring the other 34?”
According to research by SR Space (provided to Forbes), the global remote sensing data market and investment in it are growing steadily. In 2023, the market size was less than $20 billion, and by 2030, the market is expected to more than double to $40 billion. According to the company, almost a third of its market revenue comes from environmental and climate solutions. The company notes that while satellite data is also often used in agriculture and urban development, the use of remote sensing data and services is still limited in most other industries. The main buyers of this market are countries. “As part of the space strategy, government spending on the development of national remote sensing systems increases every year. By 2023, 87 countries will collectively invest more than $15 billion in space remote sensing,” SR Space Research reports.
According to Felix Fokin's speech at an industry conference held in Minsk last September, Russia's share of the global remote sensing market in 2023 will be less than 0.2%. According to Fokin, the Russian market hides many growth opportunities. In order to make this public, the expert proposes transferring the authority to develop the regulatory framework in the field of remote sensing from Roscosmos to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the Ministry of Economic Development or a new structure that will be responsible for its formation and development. Full implementation of the strategy for using remote sensing in Russia, including satellite images and aerial photographs, UAV photographs and other remote sensing data.