Belarus working on national space program for 2013-2017
"The Presidium of the National Academy of Sciences has decided to develop a new national space program; an interagency task group has been set up; the group is led by academician Piotr Vityaz," Alexander Tuzikov said. The new program envisages development of the Earth remote sensing and space communication. "There are plans to create a single navigation and time field of Belarus," he said.
This year Belarus is completing the national space program adopted in 2008. The key projects of the program include the establishment of the national Earth remote sensing system. The system is operated by Geo-Information Systems. The program includes a project to launch a satellite. "I hope that all the plans will be fulfilled in the first half of the year," the director of the institute said.
He informed that Belarusian scientists have come up with modern target equipment for the satellite. "It will be used by the Belarusian and the Russian satellite that will be launched together," Alexander Tuzikov said.
BelTA informed earlier that the Belarusian satellite will be inserted into orbit together with the Russian satellite Canopus-B via a cluster launch using the space launch facility Baikonur. The satellite will fully cover the country's territory. It will be lighter and more maneuverable than the previous one. Weighing about 400kg, it will boast a resolution of about 2 meters. With the satellite in orbit, Belarus will be able to deploy an independent system for remote sensing of the Earth without having to buy space data collection and processing services from other countries.
