Russian Space Science Internet (RSSI) Project has been established in April, 1993 after joint decision of Russian co-chairmen of Working Groups on Space Research and NASA to improve cooperative activities under the 1992 Agreement Between the United States of America and the Russian Federation Concerning Cooperation in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space for Peaceful Purposes. The main goal of this project is to provide communications to Russian space science community.

The network connectivity was facilitated through the joint cooperation of:

• the NASA Science Internet (NSI);
• the NASA Program Support Communications Network (PSCN);
• the Russian Space Science Internet (RSSI).

NSI provides network routing equipment for space organizations, network support and management from NASA side, operated by Ames Research Center. NASA PSCN provides the telecommunications infrastructure from NASA to Space Research Institute RAS. At pesent time both, NSI and PSCN, are the parts of NASA Integrated Services Network (NISN).

RSSI provides network support and management for the locations within Russia, operated by Space Research Institute RAS. The Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences represents RSSI in national and international cooperation.

     In February 1994 the first step of the Project has been finished. The sattelite 256Kbps link connected RSSI with Goddard Space Flight Center (NASA, USA) which allowed the first organizations-members of RSSI to gain access to Internet. RSSI Network Operation Centre (NOC) was born at the same time.

     From 1995 Space Research Institute RAS is an IP-node of the Southern Moscow Fiber Optic Backbone (RMIX) founded by International Science Foundation and supported by AMT Group. Participation in RMIX Project allows RSSI to join the main Russian science, research and educational networks resources and optimize network trafic using high speed FDDI media.

     In the begining of 1996 RSSI connects to another Internet eXchange point in Moscow M9-IX (M9-IX is the primary Russian ISPs Internet eXchange at MGTS node M9).

Currently (in May 1997) 46 organization have been connected to RSSI using liased lines and 37 organizations - via dial-up links.