MOSCOW, June 27 (RIA Novosti) - Russia has managed to quadruple the service life of a group of communications satellites, the information technologies and communications minister said today.
Leonid Reiman told President Vladimir Putin that this had secured Russia sixth place in the world according to this index. He also said that eight new satellites had been launched since 2000. "All these satellites are multi-purpose, and now we cover almost the whole globe except for a small part in the center of the U.S.A.," he said.
Reiman said five old satellites remained in orbit. The Russian satellite group presently has 100 satellites, whereas America's orbital group consists of 425 satellites.
