The state-owned Kosmicheskaya svyaz, or Space Communications company, has signed contracts in Paris with Alcatel of France and with European satellite communications organization Eutelsat .
The first contract, which also involves the Reshetnyov Applied Mechanics Institute from Zheleznogorsk in the Krasnoyarsk territory, is for the production of three communications satellites in 2001-2003, Boris Antonyuk, the head of Kosmicheskaya svyaz, told Interfax.
Alcatel will supply the installation equipment for the satellites, which will be launched during the same 2001-2003 period, Antonyuk said.
The Alcatel contract alone will create more than 4,000 jobs in Russia. It will be worth $100 million. In all seven new-generation communications satellites should be launched between 2001 and 2004.
Under the second contract, Eutelsat will lease 12 Ku channels to be provided by Russian Express AM-1 communications satellites, which will be placed in geostationary orbit from 2002.
This 10-year contract is worth 66 million euros, and the European Union will start to finance it as early as this year.
