Russia’s Far North, Siberia, Far East face television blackout

The satellite Ekran-M number 15 has run into problems with its relay retransmitting the ORT television channel programmes onto the regions of Russia’s Far North, Siberia, and Far East where up to 20m people live, officials at the Kosmicheskaya Svyaz (space communication) state enterprise say. According to RIA Novosti news agency, a failure occurred yesterday at 1:50 local time, and at 7:30 broadcasting was restored using the backup system. The satellite was put in orbit in 1992 and is said to have completely worked out its resource by now. Funds are needed for an urgent launch of a fresh satellite.