The five hundredth communication session with the Russian Research Satellite Interball-1 was held early in the morning on December 27. The satellite was launched from the Plesetsk Space Center on August 3, 1995, representatives of the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences told RBC. The Interball project devoted to studying the physics of the Solar and Earth system was prepared by teams of scientists from 19 countries of the CIS and Europe as well as Cuba and Canada. The project includes Interball-1 and Interball-2 satellites and Magion-4 and Magion-5 sub-satellites (http://www.iki.rssi.ru/interball.html). The Interball project is the most important part of an international set of satellites for studying the interconnections between the Sun and the Earth. Despite the lack of funds, over 300 scientific articles have been published in Russia and abroad as a result of this project. That allows speaking about Russia as one of the leading space powers in the world.