FSB against Roscosmos? Who will win the battle for satellite internet?

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The FSB wants to ban Russia from participating in the global satellite Internet project OneWeb. Roscosmos is against - it counts on billion-dollar contracts

A conflict suddenly flared up between the FSB and Roscosmos over the British project to create a satellite Internet network OneWeb. Roscosmos, which has been participating in the project since 2015, expects that it will bring in billions of dollars in contracts, but the special services are going to ban OneWeb's work in Russia as a threat to national security. The problem is that the FSB ban will not hurt to deploy the OneWeb network in Russia.

Founded by former Google manager Greg Wyler and raised $ 1.7 billion from Airbus, Coca-Cola and Virgin, the OneWeb project will deploy a network of 882 small satellites to provide high-speed internet around the world.

Roscosmos became a participant in the project in 2015 - OneWeb contracted 21 Russian Soyuz spacecraft worth more than $ 1 billion to launch its satellites. Another contract, promising $ 300-800 million in profit, can be obtained by the manufacturer of the Proton rocket, NPO them. Khrunichev.

But on October 24 this year, the FSB opposed Russia's participation in the project as threatening national security and announced its intention to restrict its work in the country.

The problem is that it is possible to ensure the operation of OneWeb in Russia without the permission of the FSB, Kommersant sources assure, that there will be enough ground stations in Kazakhstan, Italy, Norway and the United States. In this case, the special services will not be able to control the operation of the network at all ("a critical problem with the operation of SORM" will arise), and Russian space companies may lose lucrative contracts, say the newspaper's sources, which side with Roscosmos.

Negotiations between Roscosmos and the FSB have been going on for a year, but the final decision will not be made until December. The decision was more than once made at the level of the president, writes Kommersant. One of the reasons for this may be the Russian composition of the project participants - earlier the newspaper called the businessman a shareholder of the company that owns the Russian part of the JV with OneWeb. Igor Rotenberg.

The subject of the dispute in the future will affect any Internet user in Russia - after all, we are talking about the creation of a separate Internet network operating in the country, which may turn out to be uncontrolledspecial services and Roskomnadzor.