Rogozin promises assistance to Russian private space companies amid sanctions

MOSCOW. March 8 (Interfax) - Roscosmos CEO Dmitry Rogozin has promised to provide unprecedented support to private Russian space companies amid the Western sanctions.

"Dozens of private communication, meteorological observation and Earth distance sensing spacecraft manufactured in Russia will be sent to target orbits before the end of this year. The Soyuz-2 launch vehicles we have withdrawn from the project to launch the British satellite system OneWeb will be used for that," Rogozin said on a Telegram channel on Tuesday.

Roscosmos will provide unprecedented support to Russian private space companies. They will get access to new domestic developments in the sphere of space equipment engineering and will be able to get spacecraft created by private design bureaus and startups delivered to the orbit practically for free," Rogozin said.

"Mikhail Khailov, deputy general director for the development of the orbital group at Roscosmos, has received my order to take exhaustive measures to support our private space companies," Rogozin said.