“At first it was called Ehfir,” Putin said. “And at one of my public speeches I was talking and said it was Sfera. I arrived at the Kremlin, and the former Roscosmos head greeted me and said, ‘Vladimirovich, you said it was project Sfera, Sfera you said. That’s what it is, project Sfera.’”
Rogozin, who was listening to these remarks, acted immediately—presumably to save his boss from embarrassment. After Rogozin said the constellation was named Sphere, Putin recalled that he asked how’s that? Rogozin replied that it had already been renamed Sfera and not to worry.
Laughing, Putin added, “So I didn’t even make it back and it’s already renamed to Sfera. So I said, well, OK then.”
A comment on that article says it’s more complicated than that. The Air Force Chief of Staff preferred SR over RS and got the speech changed before the president gave it.
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