Author Topic: Reshetnev Satellites  (Read 60865 times)

Offline Stan Black

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Re: Reshetnev Satellites
« Reply #40 on: 06/23/2017 10:17 am »
Report: Russia may have accidentally revealed new military satellites

source

Is this the ССКМС satellites?
http://izvestia.ru/news/589798

Thanks, Stan,  for the link. Yet another possibility...

For those not fluent in Russian, SSKMS stands for "Confidential Mobile Communication Satellite System". According to the Izvestia article (August 2015) it was a merger of two projects that had been considered earlier : four satellites in highly elliptical orbits (under research project Ellips) and three satellites in geostationary orbit (under research project Yenisey). First launch was planned for 2019. Due to budget cuts, the two projects were integrated into one involving a total of four satellites : two in geostationary orbit (to be launched in 2021 and 2025) and two in highly elliptical orbits (to be launched in 2023 and 2025).

A TASS report in January 2016 said that the the launches of the satellites had been completely eliminated from the latest version of the Federal Space Program for 2016-2025. 
http://tass.ru/kosmos/2586264

However, in May this year a tender was announced for the development of specialized equipment for the satellites under the project name "Modul PM - SSKMS". Development ("technical project" phase) to be completed in November 2021. Deadline for submitting proposals was 31 May.
https://fintender.ru/star/region/Moskva/l0995000000217000039-1


The latest contract for Reflektor-2025, makes reference to satellites in both stationary orbit and highly elliptical orbit.
http://www.zakupki.gov.ru/epz/contract/contractCard/common-info.html?reestrNumber=4770238802716000125
http://www.zakupki.gov.ru/44fz/filestore/public/1.0/download/priz/file.html?uid=3AE25873A7DC00A2E053AC1107258C42

Quote
Работы по созданию изделий должны проводиться с учетом научно- технического и производственного задела, полученного при выполнении ОКР «Прибор»-(Рефлектор) в рамках государственного контракта от 19.09.2012 №307-8559/12 и эскизного проекта на создание системы спутниковой конфиденциальной мобильной связи (ССКМС) в рамках государственного
контракта от 25.09.2012 №307-5025/12.

Contract №307-5025/12 is for Yenisey-A1.
« Last Edit: 10/29/2017 07:52 am by Stan Black »

Offline Stan Black

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Re: Reshetnev Satellites
« Reply #41 on: 06/24/2017 08:15 am »
The second ammendment to the Yenisey-A1 contract, dated 25th December 2014, added this item:-
Quote
Разработка эскизного проекта на создание системы спутниковой (ВП) конфиденциальной мобильной связи (ССКМС)
Цена этапа (тыс. руб.) 179 900
http://www.zakupki.gov.ru/epz/contract/contractCard/document-info.html?reestrNumber=0173100007012000295
« Last Edit: 10/29/2017 07:53 am by Stan Black »

Offline B. Hendrickx

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Re: Reshetnev Satellites
« Reply #42 on: 06/24/2017 10:10 am »
Power supply to the P/L seems to be 4332 W for Repei-V

Satellite mass for Repei-V appears to be 3223 kg, total output of solar arrays 11900 W and coverage zone 20° to 90° northern latitude.

That appears to be the coverage zone for SSKMS satellites in highly elliptical orbits seen in this presentation by ISS Reshetnev chief Testoyedov (see p. 14) :

https://tp.iss-reshetnev.ru/documents/thesis-npk-2016/thesis-ao-iss-testoedov-2016.pdf

While the satellites would cover only Russian territory, the actual coverage circle seems to go down to about 20° NL. This, along with the procurement documents linking Pribor-Reflektor to SSKMS, now clearly makes SSKMS the leading candidate for Repei.  Kudos to Stan Black for piecing together all the bits of the puzzle.

Offline input~2

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Re: Reshetnev Satellites
« Reply #43 on: 06/24/2017 01:26 pm »
Additional details on frequency usage for SSKMS appeared in this presentation from Reshetnev in 2015
http://2015.archive.spectrforum.project-si.ru/files/2015/programma/kuzovnikov-a_v_informacionnye-sputnikovye-sistemy.pdf

Offline B. Hendrickx

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Re: Reshetnev Satellites
« Reply #44 on: 07/06/2017 10:37 pm »
I'd like to come back for a moment to the Repei-V and Repei-S satellites that accidentally appeared in a picture of a board shown to Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu during a visit to ISS Reshetnev on 6 June. I'm having second thoughts about the likelihood of Repei being related to the SSKMS mobile satellite communication system, which is one of the possibilities put forward earlier in this thread.

1) SSKMS is a dual-use civilian/military system ordered by Roskosmos (that is obvious from the openly available procurement documents related to SSKMS and the fact that it was supposed to be included in the Federal Space Program 2016-2025). The board showing Repei says it was developed in the interests of the Ministry of Defence.

2) It would seem that the four SSKMS satellites that were left after an initial round of budget cuts in 2015 were scrapped altogether from the Federal Space Program 2016-2025.
TASS report :
http://tass.ru/kosmos/2586264
Roskosmos presentation, December 2015, see slide 21
http://sovet.cosmos.ru/sites/default/files/prez-p2-1224.pptx

Why showcase them to the Minister of Defense if they're unlikely to fly before 2025?

3) The geostationary and Molniya/Tundra orbit components of SSKMS were identified in this ISS Reshetnev presentation (September 2015) as Yenisey-V and Yenisey-S (see p. 5).
http://2015.archive.spectrforum.project-si.ru/files/2015/programma/kuzovnikov-a_v_informacionnye-sputnikovye-sistemy.pdf

Why use an alternative name for a publicly known system?


Leaving aside the unlikely possibility that Repei is an internal Ministry of Defence name for the Sfera military communications satellites, my best guess now is that Repei-V and Repei-S are SIGINT satellites. These had earlier been rumored to be called Labirint and may have the designators 14F141 and 14F144 that appear in a handful of official documents. See this thread:

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=36887.0
 
It's interesting that a satellite looking very similar to Repei appeared in a PowerPoint presentation given by ISS Reshetnev chief Nikolai Testoyedov at space conference outside Moscow in September 2016.
https://tp.iss-reshetnev.ru/documents/thesis-npk-2016/thesis-ao-iss-testoedov-2016.pdf

The satellite can be seen in slides 16 and 17, which show a proposed "Integrated Space System" for Russia. It is shown together with two other satellites that are part of what is called "OG KA RTRR i RP". My understanding is that this stands for "Orbital constellation of satellites for radiotechnical reconnaissance (=ELINT) and radio interception (=COMINT)" (although, admittedly, the common Russian acronyms for ELINT and COMINT are RTR and RR). There is a green arrow pointing from those three satellites to "Reconnaissance and information assets".

I've attached a close-up of the three satellites and a close-up of Repei as seen in the board shown to Defense Minister Shoigu. Note the similarity of the upper of the three satellites to Repei (two small and two big antennas, same solar panels). The satellite on the right is identical to the one shown on p. 13 and 14  of the ISS Reshetnev presentation that I mentioned above, where it is identified as Gonets M1 (a civilian store-dump comsat system). I haven't been able to readily identify the satellite on the left. 

I'm not quite sure what to make of this. If RTRR and RP indeed stand for ELINT and COMINT, why is Gonets M1 included? And if the Repei look-alike satellite is indeed a top-secret SIGINT satellite, why would Testoyedov show it in an openly available presentation? I should point out in this respect that an ISS Reshetnev insider posting on the "Novosti kosmonavtiki" forum has said that the drawing of Repei shown to Shoigu was made with a certain "artistic freedom", meaning it may not be an accurate representation of the actual design. Perhaps this explains why a similar "'polished" drawing of the satellite made it into Testoyedov's presentation.   

Incidentally, that same ISS Reshetnev insider has not revealed the nature of the satellite and even asked the moderators of the NK forum to remove the Repei thread that I had started (which has not happened so far). That in itself is telling. SIGINT is a far more sensitive area than communications.

Offline Stan Black

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Re: Reshetnev Satellites
« Reply #45 on: 07/07/2017 02:42 pm »
That thesis-ao-iss-testoedov-2016.pdf has been removed?

What do you make of this?
Quote
КА 1, КА 2, КА 3, КА 4
Экспресс-1000H Экспресс-2000
TAS, NTSpace, отечественная кооперация
КА 1 – эксплуатация, КА 2, КА 3 – НЭО, КА 4-выпуск КД
http://www.raaks.ru/docs/doc20170315_019.pdf

Olimp-K?
« Last Edit: 07/07/2017 02:44 pm by Stan Black »

Offline gosnold

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Re: Reshetnev Satellites
« Reply #46 on: 07/07/2017 10:00 pm »
The satellite can be seen in slides 16 and 17, which show a proposed "Integrated Space System" for Russia. It is shown together with two other satellites that are part of what is called "OG KA RTRR i RP". My understanding is that this stands for "Orbital constellation of satellites for radiotechnical reconnaissance (=ELINT) and radio interception (=COMINT)" (although, admittedly, the common Russian acronyms for ELINT and COMINT are RTR and RR). There is a green arrow pointing from those three satellites to "Reconnaissance and information assets".

I've attached a close-up of the three satellites and a close-up of Repei as seen in the board shown to Defense Minister Shoigu. Note the similarity of the upper of the three satellites to Repei (two small and two big antennas, same solar panels). The satellite on the right is identical to the one shown on p. 13 and 14  of the ISS Reshetnev presentation that I mentioned above, where it is identified as Gonets M1 (a civilian store-dump comsat system). I haven't been able to readily identify the satellite on the left. 

The Repei look alike in your first picture has small solar panels for its antenna size. If it were a low-frequency communication satellite for mobile users, it would probably look more like MUOS and have bigger panels:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_User_Objective_System#/media/File:MUOS_new.jpg
On the other hand a GEO SIGINT bird does not need that much transmit power because it is usually serving only one or two ground stations with high-gain antennas, so small panels are enough.
So that satellite might be SIGINT. In that case, the large antennas are for the collection, and the small ones for the downlink to the ground station. The US Orion satellites use that system. However I don't see any antenna forest like on the Orions, so the system appears to be narrowband, which is strange for a SIGINT system.

The satellite on the left looks like MUOS, although with additional antennas on the Earth deck.

So the sat on the right is communication for sure based on what you say, the one on the left looks very much like a UHF comsat, and the one on top is ambiguous.  So I'd say if the integrated space system has both reconnaissance and information components, then the bottom two sats are information and the top one is reconnaissance.

Also, could you please attach the full pdf if you have it?
« Last Edit: 07/07/2017 10:10 pm by gosnold »

Offline B. Hendrickx

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Re: Reshetnev Satellites
« Reply #47 on: 07/07/2017 10:29 pm »
That thesis-ao-iss-testoedov-2016.pdf has been removed?

That's strange. The link was still working yesterday. Someone at ISS Reshetnev must be reading NSF  :)
Testoyedov's presentation is also available via this link with a complete transcript.

http://docplayer.ru/36231088-Perspektivy-i-prioritety-razvitiya-informacionnyh-sputnikovyh-sistem-generalnyy-direktor-ao-iss-testoedov-nikolay-alekseevich.html

Be quick to download it before it's too late... :)

Quote
What do you make of this?КА 1, КА 2, КА 3, КА 4
Экспресс-1000H Экспресс-2000
TAS, NTSpace, отечественная кооперация
КА 1 – эксплуатация, КА 2, КА 3 – НЭО, КА 4-выпуск КД
 
http://www.raaks.ru/docs/doc20170315_019.pdf
Olimp-K?   

This means one satellite using the Express-1000N or Express-2000 bus is currently in orbit, two are undergoing ground tests (NEO = nazemnaya eksperimental'naya otrabotka) and one has entered the blueprint phase (KD = konstruktorskaya dokumentatsia). If no other Express-1000N or Express-2000 based satellite has been identified yet (haven't checked), the one currently in orbit could well be Olimp-K.

Speaking of which, according to an article in the Kommersant newspaper in March 2014 Olimp-K was supposed to fly a combined SIGINT/communications payload. It could well be some kind of precursor to Repei.
https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/2436687

Some of the maneuvers it has made in the geostationary belt indicate it may be eavesdropping on other comsats (which is, of course, also a type of SIGINT), just like the American PAN satellites.
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2839/2

Anatoly Zak has speculated that it is being used to provide communications for the Russian Navy.
http://www.russianspaceweb.com/olymp.html

I presume the Repei satellites are based on the Express-2000 platform. The mass given for Repei-V on the board shown to Shoigu (although hard to read) appears to be 3223 kg (and the mass ISS Reshetnev gives for satellites using the Express-2000 platform is around 3250 kg). Moreover, it is known from ISS Reshetnev publications that the Express-2000 platform was designed to perform missions in both geostationary and highly elliptical orbits, meaning it could be used for both Repei-S (geostationary) and Repei-V (highly elliptical). Express-2000 is always linked to Proton-M (not Angara), so could we be seeing the Proton launch Repei-V satellites into Molniya orbits from Baikonur? What would the payload capacity of the Proton be to that kind of orbit?

Offline B. Hendrickx

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Re: Reshetnev Satellites
« Reply #48 on: 07/07/2017 11:12 pm »


The Repei look alike in your first picture has small solar panels for its antenna size. If it were a low-frequency communication satellite for mobile users, it would probably look more like MUOS and have bigger panels:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_User_Objective_System#/media/File:MUOS_new.jpg

On the other hand a GEO SIGINT bird does not need that much transmit power because it is usually serving only one or two ground stations with high-gain antennas, so small panels are enough.

The output of the solar panels (under minimum lighting conditions) for Repei-V appears to be 11900 W and power available for the payload 4332 W (see reply 39 in this thread). That does seem to be little taking into consideration the fact that the Express-2000 bus can provide a maximum of 13000W to a communications payload.

Quote

So that satellite might be SIGINT. In that case, the large antennas are for the collection, and the small ones for the downlink to the ground station. The US Orion satellites use that system. However I don't see any antenna forest like on the Orions, so the system appears to be narrowband, which is strange for a SIGINT system.

The satellite on the left looks like MUOS, although with additional antennas on the Earth deck.

So the sat on the right is communication for sure based on what you say, the one on the left looks very much like a UHF comsat, and the one on top is ambiguous.  So I'd say if the integrated space system has both reconnaissance and information components, then the bottom two sats are information and the top one is reconnaissance.

Thanks for those observations. The strange thing is that there are two other satellite constellations shown in the slide that are related to communications. One is "Orbital constellation for relay of information" (which includes a Luch-5) and the other "Orbital constellation for communications and battle management (military, civilian, dual use)". So why do they show Gonets and a MUOS type satellite as being part of the SIGINT constellation?   

Quote
Also, could you please attach the full pdf if you have it?

As I mentioned in my previous post, the link that I gave yesterday has suddenly become defunct, but the presentation is available via this alternative link:

http://docplayer.ru/36231088-Perspektivy-i-prioritety-razvitiya-informacionnyh-sputnikovyh-sistem-generalnyy-direktor-ao-iss-testoedov-nikolay-alekseevich.html

Offline B. Hendrickx

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Re: Reshetnev Satellites
« Reply #49 on: 07/07/2017 11:48 pm »

So that satellite might be SIGINT. In that case, the large antennas are for the collection, and the small ones for the downlink to the ground station. The US Orion satellites use that system. However I don't see any antenna forest like on the Orions, so the system appears to be narrowband, which is strange for a SIGINT system.

Don't forget (as I mentioned in my post yesterday) that the drawing of Repei and the one shown in Testoyedov's presentation may not be an accurate representation of the actual design.

Quote
The satellite on the left looks like MUOS, although with additional antennas on the Earth deck.

I've attached the only drawings I've found of the Russian equivalent to MUOS (which is SSKMS, with Yenisey-S in geostationary orbit and Yenisey-V in Molniya or Tundra orbits). This is from this ISS Reshetnev presentation (p. 5)

http://2015.archive.spectrforum.project-si.ru/files/2015/programma/kuzovnikov-a_v_informacionnye-sputnikovye-sistemy.pdf

I'm not sure if this is an accurate representation of the design, but they do seem to be similar to the satellite on the left in Testoyedov's presentation.

Offline gosnold

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Re: Reshetnev Satellites
« Reply #50 on: 07/08/2017 09:29 am »
As I mentioned in my previous post, the link that I gave yesterday has suddenly become defunct, but the presentation is available via this alternative link:

http://docplayer.ru/36231088-Perspektivy-i-prioritety-razvitiya-informacionnyh-sputnikovyh-sistem-generalnyy-direktor-ao-iss-testoedov-nikolay-alekseevich.html


I've read the pdf and saw a few interesting things: if you look at the left satellite in your picture, it is also among the satellites shown for the "ОГ связи и боевого управления" constellation (with a vertical symmetry though). So it's very likely a comsat they copy-pasted to represent an asset they did not want to show, and same thing for the Gonets sat. If they applied the same logic for the top image, that means it is a comsat they put there to represent a SIGINT bird.

However they seem to have put images of LEO SIGINT birds in the constellation "ОГ КА ДЗЗ и добывания
видовой информации". The cross they carry looks like the one from Lotos (14F145): http://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/lotos.htm

Offline Stan Black

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Re: Reshetnev Satellites
« Reply #51 on: 07/08/2017 02:54 pm »
« Last Edit: 07/08/2017 03:01 pm by Stan Black »

Offline Stan Black

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Re: Reshetnev Satellites
« Reply #52 on: 07/08/2017 06:58 pm »
So the solar panels have either 37m˛ or 48m˛ of solar cells? 37 is for the Ekspress-1000 and 48 for the either Ekspress-2000 or Ekspress-4000?

There are references to two 14Ф151, №11 and №12, and two 14Ф152, №11 and №12. 194 or 196 of solar cells would point to them being based on the larger size? Angara-A5 Briz-M is the launch vehicle for the 14Ф151. These are not Repei as that contract had not been signed?

Gerakl-KV is the replacement for Garpun.

There is a reference to five satellites Ekspress AMU 3, 4 and 7, Yamal 601 and something referred to as just 763. Total amount of solar cells 180m˛ which points to them all being Ekspress-1000 based?

 
« Last Edit: 02/11/2018 10:05 am by Stan Black »

Offline B. Hendrickx

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Re: Reshetnev Satellites
« Reply #53 on: 07/09/2017 11:00 pm »
So the solar panels have either 37m˛ or 48m˛ of solar cells? 37 is for the Ekspress-1000 and 48 for the either Ekspress-2000 or Ekspress-4000?

The solar array area given for the Ekspress-2000 satellites currently in orbit is 88 m˛.

The mass of Repei (3223 kg for Repei-V on the board shown to Shoigu) suggests it will use the Express 2000 bus, but the power supply for the payload is much smaller than what Express 2000 is capable of providing (about 4 kilowatts as seen for Repei-V on the board vs. 14 kilowatts given for Express 2000 in ISS Reshetnev publications). Apparently, the very point of building platforms like Express 2000 and 4000 was to provide more power to the communication payloads. The question then is if the power supply of the bus can be tailored to the requirements of the payload.

Offline B. Hendrickx

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Re: Reshetnev Satellites
« Reply #54 on: 07/09/2017 11:33 pm »
As I mentioned in my previous post, the link that I gave yesterday has suddenly become defunct, but the presentation is available via this alternative link:

http://docplayer.ru/36231088-Perspektivy-i-prioritety-razvitiya-informacionnyh-sputnikovyh-sistem-generalnyy-direktor-ao-iss-testoedov-nikolay-alekseevich.html


I've read the pdf and saw a few interesting things: if you look at the left satellite in your picture, it is also among the satellites shown for the "ОГ связи и боевого управления" constellation (with a vertical symmetry though). So it's very likely a comsat they copy-pasted to represent an asset they did not want to show, and same thing for the Gonets sat. If they applied the same logic for the top image, that means it is a comsat they put there to represent a SIGINT bird.

However they seem to have put images of LEO SIGINT birds in the constellation "ОГ КА ДЗЗ и добывания
видовой информации". The cross they carry looks like the one from Lotos (14F145): http://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/lotos.htm

Yes, looks like we shouldn't read too much into the drawings shown in that presentation. Again, it's highly unlikely they will show an accurate drawing of a top-secret SIGINT satellite in an open presentation like that. It even looks like the drawing on the board shown to Shoigu is not an accurate representation of Repei, as an ISS Reshetnev insider has said on the NK forum.  The board has the classification level "DSP" ("dlya sluzhebnogo pol'zovania"), which is relatively low and equivalent to "For official use only" in the US. See :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classified_information_in_Russia

In other words, the most sensitive information on the satellites was not mentioned on the board. The only reason I can think of is that there were people present during Shoigu's visit that did not have the necessary security clearances to see that classified information (like media representatives).
 

Offline Stan Black

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Re: Reshetnev Satellites
« Reply #55 on: 07/11/2017 03:41 pm »
Think I found the contract number:-

Quote
Из материалов дела следует, что 23 октября 2015 годапервым заместителем прокурора Красноярского краявозбуждено дело об административном правонарушении ч. 1 ст. 14.55 КоАП РФ в отношении должностного лица ведущего менеджера проекта по теме ОКР «Акварель» «АО ИСС» Высоцкого С.В. по факту нарушения заводом условий государственного контракта от 28.04.2014 года № Н 3/2/1/16-14-ДОГОЗ по выполнению государственного оборонного заказа на выполнение опытно-конструкторской работы «Репей», а именно невыполнением в срок до 30.06.2015 года предусмотренных контрактом (пунктом 2.2) работ – разработка и защита эскизного проекта на КС.
https://rospravosudie.com/court-zheleznogorskij-gorodskoj-sud-krasnoyarskij-kraj-s/act-517792763/

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В перспективе к «Акварели» присоединятся и другие перспективные спутниковые системы. Для обеспечения такого соединения космических систем воедино военные предъявили требование совместимости и универсальности. На первом этапе «Акварель» будет работать в интересах ВМФ России, для которого также создается спутниковый комплекс обнаружения кораблей «Лиана» с аппаратами «Пион-НКС» и «Лотос-С».
http://novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/forum/messages/forum12/topic2063/message1026635/#message1026635
« Last Edit: 07/11/2017 03:48 pm by Stan Black »

Offline Liss

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Re: Reshetnev Satellites
« Reply #56 on: 07/11/2017 07:14 pm »
Think I found the contract number:-

Quote
Из материалов дела следует, что 23 октября 2015 годапервым заместителем прокурора Красноярского краявозбуждено дело об административном правонарушении ч. 1 ст. 14.55 КоАП РФ в отношении должностного лица ведущего менеджера проекта по теме ОКР «Акварель» «АО ИСС» Высоцкого С.В. по факту нарушения заводом условий государственного контракта от 28.04.2014 года № Н 3/2/1/16-14-ДОГОЗ по выполнению государственного оборонного заказа на выполнение опытно-конструкторской работы «Репей», а именно невыполнением в срок до 30.06.2015 года предусмотренных контрактом (пунктом 2.2) работ – разработка и защита эскизного проекта на КС.

In fact, the text of the judgement contains two different dates of contract, two different numbers of contract and two different job titles of Mr. Vysotsky. Quite enough to challenge it imho :-)
« Last Edit: 07/11/2017 07:15 pm by Liss »
This message reflects my personal opinion based on open sources of information.

Offline B. Hendrickx

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Re: Reshetnev Satellites
« Reply #57 on: 07/11/2017 11:18 pm »
I suppose we should not assume that everyone reading this understands Russian, so here is some clarification. The document posted by Stan Black (dated 17 March 2016) is the response of a court in Zheleznogorsk (where ISS Reshetnev is based) to an appeal by S.V. Vysotskiy, identified in the document as ISS Reshetnev’s “leading manager” of the Akvarel project (at another point in the text he is called the leading manager of “theme 777”, which may be a code name for Akvarel).  Vysotskiy had been accused of breaching a contract on Akvarel signed between ISS Reshetnev and the Ministry of Defense and had been fined 30,000 rubles for doing so. The court overruled his appeal.

At several points in the text the date of the contract is given as 28 April 2014 and the contract number as N/2/1/5/14-DOGOZ. However,  at one point the date is given as 1 September 2014 and at another point the contract number is given as  N/3/2/1/16-DOGOZ.

At any rate, point 2.2. of the contract stipulated that ISS Reshetnev should finish the preliminary design ("eskiznyy proyekt") by 30 June 2015 (which didn’t happen). At one point in the text this part of the Akvarel project is identififed as Repei, so apparently Repei is part of the Akvarel project.

Also worth mentioning is that as part of the 28 April 2014 Akvarel contract,  ISS Reshetnev signed follow-up contracts with the TsNIRTI company in Moscow on 15 July 2014, 1 August 2014 and 13 April 2015. One of these was for the delivery of “RER” equipment. “RER” is the Russian acronym for signals intelligence. TsNIRTI has been the sole manufacturer of payloads for Soviet/Russian SIGINT satellites since the early 1960s.

What is Akvarel ?  To the best of my knowledge, all we know about it was published in a rather vague Izvestiya article back in 2013:

https://iz.ru/news/543325

The article described Akvarel as a “multi-position satellite reconnaissance system” that would initially  be used in the interests of the Russian Navy through the use of the Liana SIGINT constellation, but would later be joined by other reconnaissance satellites as well. The newspaper said TsNIRTI had won a tender to develop “the foundation” of Akvarel, namely a network of at least five ground stations spread over Russian territory (“from Kaliningrad to the Kamchatka peninsula”).

The most important thing to remember here is that if Repei is part of Akvarel, that would be more evidence that Repei is a SIGINT satellite. The only problem is that the court document describes Akvarel as a “low-orbiting satellite system”, which Repei clearly is not…

Offline Liss

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Re: Reshetnev Satellites
« Reply #58 on: 07/12/2017 05:22 am »
Well, to clarify -- the quoted text is a carbon copy of another judgement made by the same judge on the same day for another person and another project: https://rospravosudie.com/court-zheleznogorskij-gorodskoj-sud-krasnoyarskij-kraj-s/act-517871101/

In several places the court failed to edit the new text on Mr. Vysotsky correctly, and the original info on Mr. Ivlev made it into the new decision. I'm really ashamed both with the quality of judgement and the fact this was heared and published openly.
This message reflects my personal opinion based on open sources of information.

Offline B. Hendrickx

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Re: Reshetnev Satellites
« Reply #59 on: 07/12/2017 12:51 pm »
Well, to clarify -- the quoted text is a carbon copy of another judgement made by the same judge on the same day for another person and another project: https://rospravosudie.com/court-zheleznogorskij-gorodskoj-sud-krasnoyarskij-kraj-s/act-517871101/

In several places the court failed to edit the new text on Mr. Vysotsky correctly, and the original info on Mr. Ivlev made it into the new decision. I'm really ashamed both with the quality of judgement and the fact this was heared and published openly.

Igor, it was not immediately obvious from your initial post that there was a second document, so thanks for clarifying this.

If I get it right, we’re talking about the following contracts then:

28 April 2014 : contract N/2/1/5/14 between ISS Reshetnev and the Ministry of Defence on the Akvarel project
This is the one that S.V. Vysotskiy was involved in as “leading manager” of Akvarel

1 September 2014 : contract N/3/2/1/16 between ISS Reshetnev and the Ministry of Defence on Repei
This is the one that A.L. Ivlev was involved in as “leading manager of theme 777” (which may be the code name for Repei)

In other words, the purported link between Akvarel and Repei is the result of an erroneous copy/paste between the two documents.
 
Still, there is a clue from the second document that Repei is a SIGINT satellite. As part of the 1 September 2014 Repei contract, ISS Reshetnev signed agreements on 1 October 2014 and 31 December 2014 with a company called NTTs KIUS Effes on such things as assessing the effectiveness and “combat readiness” of Repei, determining its performance characteristics and “means of protecting the Repei orbital constellation”.   

It is known from another document  that Effes (based in Yubileynyy in the Moscow region) was involved in the Liana SIGINT project:

http://www.zakupki.gov.ru/223/purchase/public/download/download.html?id=7012426

Its role was "to provide information and develop algorithms to process radio signals from the 14K159/160 system" (which are the designators for the two components of the Liana electronic intelligence system, Lotos-S and Pion-NKS).

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