User:Nanobear~enwiki/Weather satellite network of Russia

Soviet era
The first weather satellite design developed in the Soviet Union was Meteor 1. The initial Meteor-1 satellite was launched in 1969. An improved series, called Meteor-2 was introduced in 1974—this was to become the main work horse of the Soviet weather satellite system. 21 satellites of this type were orbited before the series concluded in 1993. In general, three Meteor satellites were always operational during the Soviet era. Weather satellites had relatively low priority in the Soviet Union compared to other space-faring nations such as the United States.

Post-Soviet adjustments
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Russian space program suffered great hardships. Its funding decreased by 80% over 1989–1999, and employment was cut from 400,000 to 100,000. The weather satellite network was one of the most obvious victims of the post-Soviet adjustment.

The 1990s
The last Soviet-built weather satellite, Meteor 3-5 was launched in 1991. Meteor 2-21 was launched in 1993 and continued working until August 2002. Meteor 3-6 was launched in 1994. No new weather satellites were launched during the difficult period of 1994-2001.

The new century
A new design, called Meteor 3M, was introduced in December 2001 with the launch of Meteor 3M1 (17F45). The satellite experienced problems with some of its equipment, and stopped working in March 2006. At this point, Russia had no operational weather satellites at all, until 2009, when Meteor-M1 was launched.

Current situation
Russia currently has two operational weather satellites: one in low earth orbit (Meteor-M1 of the Meteor-M series) and one in geostationary orbit (Elektro-L No.1 of the Elektro-L series).