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MOSCOW, March 24 (Reuters) – Russia said on Tuesday it had launched 16 low-orbit satellites \u200cas Moscow seeks to build a rival \u200cto Elon Musk’s Starlink network.<\/p>\n
Russia remains far behind Starlink, which \u200bsince its first launch of operational satellites in 2019 has grown to more than 10,000 satellites in orbit.<\/p>\n
Bureau 1440, the Russian aerospace firm developing a \u200clow-Earth-orbit satellite system \u2060for global broadband data delivery, said it launched its first batch of 16 \u2060operational satellites on Monday.<\/p>\n
“The launch of the first devices of the target group is a transition \u200bfrom experiment \u200bto the creation of \u200ba communication service,” it \u200csaid in a statement.<\/p>\n
The Soviet Union led early milestones in the space race, launching the Sputnik 1 satellite in 1957 and sending Yuri Gagarin into space in 1961 as the first human \u200cto orbit Earth.<\/p>\n
But after the \u200bSoviet Union collapsed in \u200b1991, Russia’s space \u200bprogramme struggled with funding shortages, corruption \u200cand complaints from young engineers \u200babout poor \u200bmanagement.<\/p>\n
According to Ashlee Vance’s 2015 biography of Musk, Russian officials dismissed Musk in 2002 as \u200bnot credible, spurring \u200chim to find a way to undercut \u200bRussia’s space launch fees.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge. \u200bEditing by Mark Potter)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n