On May 12, 2009 Russia placed in service the Express MD1 satellite intended for telecommunications and broadcasting. This satellite is operated by RSCC as part of the state-owned civil satellite fleet. Launched on February 11, 2009 jointly with Express-AM44, Russia's first small satellite was successfully tested. Controlled by RSCC, the satellite is deployed at 80E00 to support the telecommunications and broadcasting potential of Express-AM2 in C and L bands.

The small satellite Express MD1 was built by Khrunichev in cooperation with the Italian branch of Thales Alenia Space to provide mobile presidential and government service, digital video and audio broadcasting, Internet access, data transmission and videoconferencing. Planned to cover the European part of Russia, Urals, Siberia and the CIS, Express MD1 has a bandwidth of 321 MHz (eight 40 MHz transponders in C band and one 1 MHz transponder in L band). Its active lifetime in orbit is 10 years.