On 26 February 1985, the
Ministry of General Machine-Building of the Soviet Union issued an order that formed the Main Department for the creation and use of space technology for the national economy and scientific research – Glavkosmos. Although it was originally envisioned to command all
Soviet space activities, it worked more as a marketing and coordinating body than an executive agency. During the
perestroika reform movement of the late 1980s, Glavkosmos started offering commercial services for global customers, aimed primarily at competing with launchers based in the United States. The first commercial offering was presented at the Space Commerce '88 trade show in
Montreux, Switzerland. Most notably it featured the sales of the following launchers:
Energia, with a payload of up to 100t to
Low Earth orbit (LEO);
Proton with a payload of up to 20t to LEO or 2t to
GEO for 25 - ;
Tsyklon-3 for payloads up to 4t to LEO; a family of
Soyuz rockets in the configurations for LEO,
geostationary transfer and
Molniya orbits as well as the
Vostok launchers for 12 - . Glavkosmos also featured
Kosmos rockets with the successfully completed launches of Indian
Aryabhata and
Bhaskara satellites. Other offerings included the sales of the
Okean-O1 satellites or the use of space on the
Foton satellites and
Mir space station. During the conference several contracts were signed, including
down payments for three satellite launches for undisclosed customers, an
option for a launch of the
Aussat-2 on Proton, contract with Payload Systems Inc. for the experiments in
protein crystallization on Mir and
Kayser-Threde for microgravity experiments on the Foton satellites in 1989, 1990 and 1991. The United States imposed sanctions on Glavkosmos in May 1992, after it agreed in January 1991 to transfer technology for the production of
KVD-1 cryogenic rocket engines to the
Indian Space Research Organisation. Today, the key objectives of the company are the promotion of the Russian space industry to the world markets and management of complex international space projects. One of the key international projects of Glavkosmos is a joint Russian-European program,
Soyuz at the Guiana Space Centre, in which Glavkosmos is the main contract integrator for all of the Russian rocket and space industry entities involved. Glavkosmos is also in charge of coordination with the French company
Arianespace at all phases: Arianespace is responsible for launch operations and operates the
Ariane 5,
Vega and
Soyuz launch sites at the
Guiana Space Centre. == GK Launch Services ==