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21 Jun 2003

OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE
about a visit of the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation
to the S.P.Korolev RSC Energia

June 18, 2003. Korolev, Moscow Area
Today, the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation visited S.P.
Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia, the prime Russian
company for designing, manufacturing, testing and actually flying the
space hardware. The visit took place in accordance with the Russian
Federation Ministry of Defense plans to get acquainted with the
activities of the companies in the Russian aviation and space
industries, including the advanced Russian space technologies.

The RF Minister of Defense and his attendants were welcomed by the
S.P.Korolev RSC Energia President, Designer General, member of the
Russian Academy of Sciences, Yu.P.Semenov.

In the meeting room located in the building of the Space Objects
Assembly and Integrated Tests Center, Yu.P.Semenov spoke about the
history of the company and major areas of its current activities. The
RF Minister of Defence and his attendants were briefed about the RSC
Energia areas of activities, the Corporation's achievements in
developing and manufacturing competitive high-technology products for
both space and non-space applications. Presented were the company's
proposals and status of the projects for advanced rocket and space
technology, including a project to radically upgrade the medium-class
launch vehicle Soyuz allowing it to launch into GEO up to 2.3-ton
satellites from Plesetsk launch site, and projects for specialized
long active life spacecraft based on the multi-purpose satellite bus
of the Yamal type to address the tasks of telecommunication,
navigation, monitoring of objects on the ground and other tasks.

RF Minister of Defense S.B.Ivanov and his attendants toured with
great interest the assembly shop for Yamal communications satellites
and upper stages of Block Dm type, which meets state-of-the-art
requirements for production facilities in the rocket and space
industry. They also visited the Corporation's check-out and testing
facility where manned and unmanned spacecraft of Soyuz and Progress
type and the space station modules undergo the final assembly and
integrated tests. Here S.B.Ivanov and Yu.P.Semenov gave an interview
to the representatives of Russian national mass media. The questions
concerned both space issues, and the activities of the RF Ministry of
Defense.

In his interview, RF Minister of Defense S.B.Ivanov noted, that by
offering a "very high-technology product" RSC Energia not only
occupies an exceptional place in the development of Russia's rocket
and space technology, but also plays a special role in strengthening
the space component of Russia's defense capability. Today, without
the development of Russian space industry, "one cannot seriously
consider a military reform. If we don't have it, there'll be no
modern armed forces" -emphasized the Minister. Answering a question
from Kommersant newspaper, he noted that being a leading Russian
corporation in developing competitive launch vehicles and spacecraft,
RSC Energia is entitled to expect to be awarded a contract from the
Government, including one from the Ministry of Defense. Taking part
in the visit of the RF Ministry of Defense delegation to the
Corporation were a state secretary, first deputy director general of
Rosaviakosmos N.F.Moiseev and representatives of that agency.

The visit lasted about three hours.

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