75% of Russia's Satellite Electronics Come From US

schwit1 writes: One Russian aerospace industry expert noted today that three-quarters of all their satellite electronics comes from the United States: "According to [Nikolay Testoyedov], up to 75 percent of the electronic components for Russian satellites come from the US. Consequently, if it retaliates should Moscow refuse to sell RD-180 rocket motors to Washington — which Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin has threatened — Russia's satellite program would be frozen for at least two years. "The imported electronic components in our satellites represent 25 to 75 percent of the total in communications; in military ones, somewhat less; in commercial ones, more," Testoyedov says. Of these imported components, approximately 83-87 percent come from the United States thus giving Washington the whip hand." If we stop providing these electronics he estimates that after their present stock runs out in about a year it would take at least two years before Russia could replace these American-made parts. As the above linked article at The Interpreter mentions, this is relevant in part because of recent talks about U.S. sanctions which could affect this kind of commerce.

Comments

Re:uh, so?

[ihtoit]

Texas Instruments fabrications are done in China?

Who knew?

(actually they do have one plant under construction in Chengdu. but most of their fabs are done in Maine, Texas, and Japan).

Re:uh, so?

[ihtoit]

well, yes, considering TI/NS supply most of the space hardened electronics for the entire planet...

Re:uh, so?

[ColdWetDog]

Is TX Instruments somehow related to this story?

Yep.

Who do you think builds radiation resistant electronics? Radio Shack?

Why is math so hard?

[ustolemyname]

That title is terrible, and not supported by the article.

The article presents some numbers, quoting Nikolay Testoyedov:

• Some Russian satellites are 25% imported components, some are made of 75% imported components.
• Of these imported components, at most 7/8 (87%) come from America
• So, at MOST, 65% (75% * 87%) of Russian satellite components are from the US.
• However, this is just an upper bound from what few numbers we have. Taken in context, it seems likely that the average Russian satellite is only 1/3 to 1/2 American components. Still high, but less shocking than the title number.

Now, I think Slashdot gets off the hook for the misleading title, because the firggin article attributes the 75% from the US number to Nikolay Testoyedov and used the same number in its title. But the article title demonstrates some terrible critical math and reading comprehension skills.

Re:'Comes from'

[Anonymous Coward]

Creating radiation resistant computer components is not as easy as fabricating a consumer video card. It is extremely expensive and time consuming. In industries that deal with specialty military hardware, you'll tend to see that there are only a handful of those companies in existence and they are concentrated in America (in this case, Texas Instruments has that particular market). You cannot export that sort of fabrication to another country without also exporting the people, R&D, and military secrets along with it.

So yes, it would be very difficult for Russia to find another supplier for a lot of these components or to start manufacturing all of them locally. This is not consumer technology.