OREANDA-NEWS The Marathon-IoT spacecraft, which is part of the federal Sphere project, is scheduled to be launched into orbit in the first half of 2025, said Roscosmos CEO Yuri Borisov.

"The first devices for the Marathon are ready this year, which will be launched in the first half of next year," Borisov said in an interview with Rossiya-24 TV channel (VGTRK).

In September last year, Roscosmos announced the conclusion of a state contract with Reshetnev JSC for the creation of 132 satellites of the Marathon low-orbit system. The grouping is planned to be used in the interests of aviation and for mobile Internet services. According to the presentation by Reshetnev CEO Evgeny Nesterov, it was supposed to create 271 spacecraft of this series in 2024-2030.

In February of this year, Roscosmos announced the postponement of the launch of the first demonstration satellite of the Marathon-IoT series for additional software checks. It was planned to launch it as an accompanying payload in conjunction with the Meteor-M 2-4 hydrometeorological apparatus, which launched from the Vostochny cosmodrome on February 29, 2024.

April 4, CEO of the Gonets Satellite System (operator of the Sphere project) Pavel Cherenkov said that two Marathon-IoT spacecraft are planned to be launched into orbit by the end of 2024.

The Sphere orbital group will include five satellite communications groups - Yamal, Express-RV, Express, Skif and Marathon, as well as the same number of remote sensing groups - Berkut-X, Berkut-O, Berkut-VD,Berkut-S and Smor, as well as the Gryphon group of low-orbit small global monitoring satellites.