Academician Reshetnev Satellite Information Systems (ISS) is one of the leading space companies in Russia. Its core activity is to build spacecraft, systems and various complexes: fixed and mobile communications, navigation, geodesy and relay. The company has the technology for the complete process of building satellites, including applied research, design and development, manufacture and tests. It also controls and maintains spacecraft in orbit.
In addition to defense and civilian spacecraft, the company also builds research satellites. The small space probe Yubileiny that was developed at ISS was successfully put into orbit in May 2008. This is the enterprise's first satellite on a non-pressurized platform and it will provide the basis for the development of new instruments and systems.
At present, ISS is creating an integrated structure for the national space industry which will comprise nine more Russian companies that have been partners in building spacecraft of various classes and purposes for many years.
The spacecraft built by ISS account for two-thirds of all the Russian spacecraft in orbit. During the last 49 years the satellite builders have created more than 1,160 spacecraft which operate in all the main types of orbits from a low circular to a high elliptical orbit. These satellites compete successfully with space technology worldwide on all the main considerations.
The modern goals and prospects of the enterprise's space activities are determined by the Federal Space Programme of Russia for 2006-2015 and the Federal Targeted Programme Global Navigation System.
ISS is the main developer of the GLONASS global satellite navigation system, including the modern navigation spacecraft and the ground control complex. Among the priority tasks facing the company in 2008 under FTP Global Navigation System are the development and introduction of six GLONASS-M satellites. Three satellites were already launched successfully on September 25. The next three will be put into orbit in late September. Simultaneously, ISS has started work on the new generation GLONASS-K spacecraft with improved technical specifics and a longer lifespan.
Since the start of the Federal Space Programme, an Express-AM-33 telecommunications satellite was successfully launched in January 2008; it was built by ISS and commissioned by the Ministry of Information Technologies and Communications, the Federal Space Agency and FGUP Space Communications. The next satellite to be launched is Express-AM-44, the seventh satellite in the series the company has developed and built as part of the programme of renewing the Russian fleet of satellites in orbit. Its capacity has been increased threefold.
Fifteen years ago the Reshetnev ISS was the first Russian space company to break into the world market. As a result of working with the company Thales Alenia Space (Alcatel Space at the time), a SESAT satellite was launched successfully in 2000. It still performs the functions of the European satellite communications system EUTELSAT.
ISS and TSS continue to cooperate. In April 2008, the heads of the two companies Nikolai Testoyedov and Pascal Suris, in the presence of the French Ambassador to Russia Stanislas de Laboulaye, signed a memorandum of understanding on the joint development of communication and weather satellites Express-RV on the basis of the Express-4000 platform. Express-RV satellites will operate in a high elliptical orbit permanently covering high latitudes and the North Pole.
This is not the only area in which the Russian and European companies cooperate. As part of the Federal Space Programme for 2006-2015, ISS has joined forces with TSS to create geostationary relay satellites Luch-5A and Luch-5B to provide communication with the International Space Station and other space projects. In 2007, they signed a contract for the supply of relay elements for these satellites during Le Bourget Airspace Show. It enabled the Russian firm to start designing, building and testing payloads for modern satellites in compliance with world standards. In addition, ISS has teamed up with TSS to develop two geodetic GEO-IK2 satellites to be launched in 2010, thus renewing Russia's space geodetic programme after a break of more than ten years.