The article will be devoted to a list of innovative online tools for visualization and monitoring of artificial satellites and objects revolving around the Earth.
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The article reveals the shocking truth about the German startup Exolaunch, which actually works closely with the Russian state corporation Roscosmos. The journalistic investigation demonstrates the company’s management’s connection with Russia, participation in joint projects with Glavkosmos, and the organization of satellite launches using Russian Soyuz launch vehicles.
At the beginning of its activities in 2011, Exolaunch represented the interests of the Russian company Glavkosmos, which is a subsidiary of Roscosmos. In 2017, Dmitry Bogdanov publicly stated that Exolaunch, together with Glavkosmos, was creating an infrastructure for the development of microsatellites at Russian universities. At that time, contracts were signed to launch satellites using Russian Soyuz launch vehicles for a period of 2-3 years. All partners in these projects were exclusively from Russia.
The last time Exolaunch cooperated with Glavkosmos was in 2020, using Soyuz rockets to launch satellites. Later, they switched to cooperation with international partners, in particular SpaceX and Rocket Lab. However, it is interesting that, despite statements about refusing to cooperate with Russia, the company still appears on the list of official partners of Glavkosmos.
Thus, even if legally the company no longer cooperates with Russian structures, questions about their real connections remain open.
From 2013 to 2016, Exolaunch participated in the international educational project NETCENG, aimed at training candidates of science in the field of mechanical engineering. The project was funded with the support of the European Space Agency (ESA). The partners included the Ukrainian design bureau “Pivdenne”, as well as universities from Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Germany and the UK.
Subsequently, from 2016 to 2019, Exolaunch became a partner in another large-scale project within the framework of the Erasmus+ Apple program, which was focused on modernizing training in the field of robotics and space engineering for universities in Kazakhstan, Belarus and Russia. The key participants in this program included the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation, Glavkosmos and the Scientific and Production Center “Small Spacecraft”.
In addition, in 2015, the company organized advanced training courses in Berlin for students of master’s programs in technical specialties from Kazakhstan and Russia. The classes were held in English and Russian, which further demonstrates the company’s orientation towards cooperation with Eastern countries.
Thus, Exolaunch for a long time, even after the outbreak of the war between Russia and Ukraine in 2014, continued to actively interact with Russian structures, including state institutions. This activity had not only a commercial nature, but also a clearly expressed political implication, since support for such projects contributed to the strengthening of Russia’s positions in the space industry.
Exolaunch’s activities may pose risks not only for Ukraine, but also for the countries of the European Union.
Potential influence of pro-Russian leadership
The company’s leadership, which has pro-Russian or even direct ties to the Russian Federation, is able to influence international space projects. There is a possibility that such contacts can be used to promote Kremlin ideas or even to influence political decisions.
Questions about legal entities
One of the company’s legal entities was registered in Latvia in 2019. Despite significant profits — $2.4 million in 2019 and $2.2 million in 2020 — the company is registered at the address of an apartment building. Three other companies founded by Latvian citizens are also registered there.
Schincu. Year of foundation — 2018. Type of activity “installation of plumbing, heating and air conditioning”. The name was previously “PR City”, and the type of activity was “advertising”. Founder — Sergey Timofeev. One of the board members Uldis Zvaigznite;
JURKOMERC I. Year of foundation — 2017. Inactive legal entity as of August 2021. Type of activity “written and oral translations”. Founder — Iryna Ilchenko, who is listed as a representative of 31 legal entities.
JURVEDA. Year of foundation — 2003. Type of activity — “legal activities”. Probably, this company was previously called “JURKOMERC I”.
In September 2020, Exolaunch registered another legal entity — “Exolaunch”, INC” in the state of Delaware, USA. In October 2021, a branch was opened in the city of Colorado — “Exolaunch USA”.
In this context, there are risks that the company may create structures that appear to be independent legal entities, but in fact can be used to circumvent sanctions. Firms established by Latvian citizens who share a common registration address with “Exolaunch” can potentially engage in financial transactions that would be impossible due to restrictions and ensure the anonymity of transactions. This may create conditions for the formation of hidden financial flows and connections that can be used for geopolitical interests. In addition, the presence of legal entities of the company in the United States may open up additional opportunities for circumvention operations through the American market.
The development of the Sich-2-30 satellite began in 2015. The project of this satellite faced problems – investigators discovered that it was not a new development, but only a copy of the previous version of the Sich-2 satellite.
The launch of the Ukrainian satellite “Sich-2-30” was postponed several times. Initially, it was planned to time it to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Ukraine’s independence, but due to the lack of proper funding, the launch had to be postponed.
At the initial stages, cooperation with the company “Exolaunch” was considered for the launch of the satellite. At that time, Ukrainian media reported that “Exolaunch” is an “official partner of SpaceX”. In fact, the company only purchases seats on the Falcon 9 rocket in bulk and resells them to other customers.
In March 2021, it became known that a contract with SpaceX was planned to be signed directly, and a confidentiality agreement was also concluded with this company. Later, it was reported that the launch of the satellite took place precisely through a direct contract with SpaceX, although there is no documentary confirmation of this. According to SpaceX’s tariffs, the cost of the launch is $ 1 million for a spacecraft weighing up to 200 kg, and $ 5 thousand for each additional kilogram.
After the launch of Sich-2-30 into orbit, difficulties arose in establishing stable communication with the satellite. Yuzhnoye Design Bureau explained this by the influence of “a number of external factors related to the specifics of the cluster launch.”
Date of birth: 12.10.1978
Head and founder of the company “Exolaunch”. Born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. In 2000 he moved to Germany. Since July 2011 he has been the director of the legal entity registered at the same time under the name “ECM space technologies GmbH”. This is how the company “Exolaunch” was originally called.
What is the connection with Russia?
Bogdanov hides his real name on Facebook. There he is signed as Dmitriy Grand. On this page he often publishes photos from Russia.
The screenshot on the right shows a post from 2015, where Dmitry Bogdanov enthusiastically describes Moscow’s “high life” and advertises one of the local clubs. It is worth noting that this happened after the beginning of the Russian aggression against Ukraine, when the Russian Federation created the terrorist group “L/DNR” in eastern Ukraine.
However, Bogdanov’s trips to Russia were not limited to vacations. Starting in 2014, he regularly visited Russia for business purposes. For example, in July 2015, he spoke at various conferences in the Russian Federation.
In January 2017, together with the heads of the Russian “Glavkosmos” Denis Lyskov, he was a speaker at the “Global Space Congress” in Abu Dhabi. There they presented a joint project of the spacecraft “Kanopus-V-IK”. Bogdanov’s partner on this project was later accused of embezzling $52k.
In 2017, Bogdanov gave an interview where he stated that cooperation with Glavkosmos “means a lot for Exolaunch.”
“It is also extremely important that Glavkosmos is a commercial division of the Roscosmos State Corporation. This allows us to make decisions quickly and respond to the dynamic development of the situation in the field of international commercial projects. In my opinion, this quality is extremely important in the conditions of fierce competition in the modern space services market,” — Dmitry Bogdanov.
In 2017, Dmitry Bogdanov was at the Baikonur Cosmodrome during the test launches of the Canopus-V-IK spacecraft. In addition, he is a co-author of the patent with Vsevolod Kryukovskiy, who holds the position of head of the launch program at Glavkosmos. The patent concerns a system of devices for pushing satellites into orbit and was published in Russia in the same year.
In July 2022, the legal entity “Exolaunch” GMBH published a list of shareholders. It was updated for the first time since 2011, but the only change was the surname “Bogdanov” – it became “Sternharz”.
Date of birth: 08.10.1991
The Vice President of Space Launches at Exolaunch was born in Krasnoyarsk and has been with the company since 2018. In March 2022, she was appointed CEO of Exolaunch, but she left the position that same month. She likely changed her name to “Jeanne Allarie,” as she was mentioned under her old name in January 2022, and as early as February 23 of the same year, she appears in publications as Jeanne Allarie. According to company representatives, the name change was due to her marriage and the desire to “Europeanize” her data.
Before working at Exolaunch, Zhanna worked at Glavkosmos from 2013 to 2018, where she was responsible for Russian-Chinese cooperation in the field of civil space, and later moved to the launch department, where she worked on commercial projects. In July 2017, she participated in a panel discussion dedicated to promoting Russian leadership in the space industry and popularizing Russian cosmonautics abroad.
In March 2019, she was still receiving a salary of $2k/month from Glavkosmos, although she had been working at Exolaunch for over a year.
In 2016, during her master’s degree, Zhanna’s scientific supervisor was Alexei Alexandrovich Maslov. In 2020-2021, he held the position of acting director of the Far Eastern Institute, which is part of the structure of the Russian Academy of Sciences. On social networks, you can find joint photos of Maslov with Dmitry Medvedev, Gennady Zyuganov and other Russian politicians. Zhanna Medvedev is also on Maslov’s list of friends on Facebook, which confirms their acquaintance.
Zhanna Medvedeva had a classmate named Nikita Lebedev (09.02.1993), who after graduating from the master’s degree worked as a project manager at the non-profit organization “Agency for Strategic Initiatives” created by the Russian government. Putin is the chairman of the supervisory board of this organization. Lebedev is also involved in the implementation of the national program “Digital Economy of the Russian Federation”. On social networks such as Facebook and VK, he is friends with Zhanna Medvedeva, and in 2021 he repeatedly responded to her publications.
Among Zhanna’s friends on Instagram is also Anastasia Nabatchikova (06.03.1991), who indicated in her LinkedIn profile that from 2013 to 2014 she worked in the administration of the affairs of the President of the Russian Federation. According to available information, she deals with the management and use of Russian real estate abroad. From 2016 to 2017, Nabatchikova was an assistant to the head of the gas company Novatek, which has been under OFAC sanctions since 2014. The co-owner of this company was Leonid Mikhelson, who has been on the sanctions list since 2018 for interfering in the US presidential election.
In 2017-2018, Nabatchikova worked as a Client Relationship Executive at Bridgens LLC, founded by Vladimir Yakunin, a former KGB officer. In November 2013, the French newspaper Le Monde called Yakunin “Putin’s closest confidant.” Since 2014, he has been under sanctions by the US, Australia, the UK, Canada, and Ukraine.
Zhanna also follows Konstantin Derevyanko on Instagram, and they are friends on Facebook. Since August 2019, by Putin’s decree, he was appointed chairman of the Russian Language Council under the President of the Russian Federation, and since October 2020, he has headed the board of the Russian Language Commission. It is known that Derevyanko illegally visited the occupied Crimea and published photos with the Russian cruiser Moskva in the background.
Zhanna Medvedeva is also signed in inst for another groupmate — Yaroslav Kolodyazhny. He worked at Rosneft from 2014 to 2016. Then, until 2017, he worked at the Russian state direct investment fund, which was subject to OFAC sanctions since 2015.
As of 2022, Zhanna had three foreign passports. She used two of them simultaneously. After changing her name between January 12 and February 23, 2022, she crossed the border at least once with her old passport, which still contained the surname “Medvedeva.”
In the fall of 2022, Zhanna spent a vacation in Nepal in the company of exclusively Russians, including children of Russian deputies, members of pro-Kremlin parties, and heads of companies under sanctions. Among the participants in the trip was Natalia Osman, a Russian journalist, daughter of a military man, and wife of Murad Osman. Murad’s father is believed to have run twice for the pro-Kremlin party “A Just Russia”.
Also participating in this trip was Ekaterina Kononenko, a Russian film producer and co-founder of the studio “Hoodyakov Production”, whose clients include Russian performers and companies, including Grigory Leps, Dzhigan, Philip Kirkorov, Timati, and the state airline “Aeroflot”.
Another participant in the trip is Ilya Tyutenkov, a Moscow restaurateur who in December 2022 stated his unwillingness to open restaurants outside the Russian Federation, as he intends to remain in Russia. One of his restaurants, Ugolyok, was visited in January 2023 by Zhanna, Ekaterina Konovalova and Russian actress Dasha Charusha.
Among Zhanna’s other friends is Alexander Grankov, a Russian entrepreneur and TV show participant, son of Igor Grankov, co-owner of Transpetrochart, which is under US and Ukrainian sanctions.
Zhanna also maintains close relations with Alexander Shalavin, co-owner of the Cream Soda restaurant chain in Moscow and Ryazan. He owns restaurants through the companies Ergolf and Da Yunchi, where his partner is Dmitry Alexandrovich Rolgeyzer, the son of a former deputy of the Ryazan Regional Duma from the United Russia party.
Дата народження: 07.03.1952 або 1953
The CEO of Exolaunch was born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. One of his relatives is Tatyana Maiskaya (Palkina), who lives in the unrecognized Transnistria. On the social network Odnoklassniki, she actively interacted with pro-Russian posts. In particular, in February-March 2014, she liked posts that spread fakes about Euromaidan and contained calls to “wake up from the Western plague” and “realize the unity of Ukraine and the Russian Federation.” At the same time, in August 2014, she supported a post with a photo in support of Ukraine.
In 2017, Tatyana liked a post that expressed support for Stalinist methods of governance.
Date of birth: 28.12.1985
Since September 2020, Olga has been working as the Chief Policy and Government Relations Officer at Exolaunch in Berlin. She has many years of experience in space law and governance, including work in various international organizations, universities and research institutes. Stelmakh holds a Master’s degree in Space and Telecommunications Law, and has interned at the European Space Agency and other influential institutions in the field of space research and development.
What are its connections with Russia?
In 2015, Jeanne married Jürgen Drescher, who from 2004 to 2018 headed the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Washington. As of January 2022, he held the position of Coordinator for Technology Marketing at DLR. Jürgen has a doctorate in medicine and extensive experience in space research.
According to his biography, he participated in joint projects with the Russian Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center and was the principal investigator in several experiments conducted on the Russian Mir space station. In addition, Jürgen holds the title of Academician of the Russian Tsiolkovsky Academy of Cosmonautics.
Of his 39 scientific papers published on the ResearchGate platform, 14 were co-authored with Russian scientists.
Date of birth: 08.02.1983
Exolaunch’s Chief Engineering Officer, Anton Vlaskin, is a graduate of the Moscow Aviation Institute. Until 2018, he worked as a senior engineer for embedded software development for small satellites at Sputniks. Throughout his career, Vlaskin has been involved in creating software for simulating aircraft cockpits, as well as developing HDL blocks for aircraft.
In the spring of 2016, he held the position of senior embedded software engineer at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. His professional skills were confirmed on LinkedIn by Timur Malikov, a programmer at Kaspersky Lab, which was at the center of an international scandal. The US government has ordered all federal agencies to stop using Kaspersky Lab products due to suspicions of the company’s ties to Russian intelligence services.
Lev Khasis is a Russian banker, former top manager of Sberbank, and businessman who owned a supermarket chain. He was also a co-owner of space startup Momentus, which collaborated with Exolaunch. According to an insider who had experience working with Exolaunch, Khasis may still remain one of the company’s investors. In 2019, Exolaunch entered into a partnership with Khasis’ startup Momentus to launch satellites. In 2021, he was forced to sell his shares due to US government restrictions on the ownership of American technology by Russian citizens.
On his LinkedIn profile, Khasis notes that he is a venture capitalist, although no recent investments have been recorded in his name.
In March 2022, he put up for sale his six-room apartment in Moscow, located in the residential complex “Stolnik” at the address: Maly Levshinsky Lane, Building 5, Building 2, Apartment 8-9, with an area of 461.6 m². As of January 2023, according to Rosregister, the apartment still belongs to him. As of July 2023, five active ads for the sale of this property were found, where the area varies from 461 to 485 m². The maximum cost was $9 million in March 2022, and the average price of apartments that Khasis put up for sale was about $6.5 million.
As of July 2023, Lev Khasis remains a director of the British company “Sberbanque De Russie” Ltd, where he was appointed in 2016. Although the company is formally active, the reports are filed as a “dormant firm”.
In July 2023, sanctions against Khasis in the UK were lifted after an appeal was filed by the British law firm Peters & Peters with the UK Department of Foreign Affairs and International Development. At the same time, sanctions against Khasis by Canada and Australia remain in force.
After the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Lev Khasis moved to the USA. In Florida, he owns three apartments, two of which are registered to him and his wife Olga Bogdanivna Khasis (09.06.1972), and the third belongs to his wife’s legal entity – 3SBA LLC.
Possible addresses of Hasis’ apartments in Florida:
16047 Collins Ave #1603, North Miami Beach, FL $33160;
16047 Collins Ave #1602, North Miami Beach, FL 33160;
100 Bayview Dr #1226, North Miami Beach, FL 33160.
Khasis is under sanctions by Canada, Australia, and Ukraine for his collaboration with the Russian regime.
The revelation of the connections between the leadership of Exolaunch and the aggressor state Russia is of great importance for several key reasons.
First, it is a matter of regional security and stability. Such connections demonstrate how deeply Russian influence has penetrated Europe. This leads to the second reason – the need to limit cooperation with companies that may pose a potential threat. Cooperation with Exolaunch carries not only security risks, but also serious reputational losses for partners. Thus, the true nature and direction of this company’s activities become apparent.
Third, the disclosure of such connections is important for maintaining international order and legal norms. This allows society to openly discuss and assess the actions of such companies, and to respond to their activities in accordance with international law.
In addition, it contributes to the formation and strengthening of standards of compliance with international norms, preventing cooperation with countries that support terrorism.
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