President of Belarus Grigory Lukashenko especially emphasized cooperation with the Russian Federation in the space field, speaking today in Minsk at the 31st International Congress of the Association of Space Flight Participants.
The International Congress of the Association of Space Flight Participants is taking place in Minsk on September 9-15. More than 80 astronauts from 17 countries will take part in it.
“Together with the Russians, our specialists are developing promising technologies, taking part in the creation of a new spacecraft, and planning cooperation within the framework of the international Sirius program,” Lukashenko said.
He emphasized that the Belarusian space industry produces high-resolution optical systems for satellites, space mirrors, and equipment for remote sensing of the Earth.
“These are new technologies that have affected an entire sector of the economy. Thanks to this, Belarus has joined the ranks of highly developed civilized states,” Lukashenko said.
As Sergei Chizhik, First Deputy Chairman of the Presidium of the National Academy of Sciences, said, Belarus will cooperate with the Institute of Medical and Biological Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
“The idea of our participation in projects for the exploration of the Moon has already been raised. I think Belarusians will find a place in them, we have experience, we have people. And I don’t rule it out, and I would even like for us from science to also start preparing our own cosmonaut to conduct experiments in orbit,” Chizhik said.
As PolitNavigator reported in February 2015, Russia, due to the escalation of the aggressive policy of the new Kyiv government, refused to purchase Zenit launch vehicles produced at the Yuzhmash plant in Dnepropetrovsk. The production and sale of these launch vehicles brought the Ukrainian enterprise 80% of its revenue.
Now at Yuzhmash there is a shortened three-day working week with meager salaries; many specialists have quit and gone abroad.
In August, in the park of past achievements of Yuzhmash, Ukrainian nationalists planted a Bandera flag on a Cyclone-3 rocket, the tallest of the mock-up rockets exhibited at the museum site.