June 18, 2003. 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.