Russia&CIS

The government of the Central Asian state of Turkmenistan has announced that it has agreed to the technical requirements for the design, construction, and launch of its first Earth observation satellite, according to press reports in Turkmenistan.

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Azerbaijan’s state space corporation, AzerCosmos OJSC, and the Russian Satellite Communications Company (RSCC – also known as the Russian Satellite Communications Federal State Unitary Enterprise), inked a cooperative agreement in Baku, the capital city of Azerbaijan, on 5 December 2019.

The Iranian government has expressed its wish to enter into a cooperative arrangement with its neighbour Azerbaijan for satellite research and development as well as satellite manufacturing, according to Azerbaijani and Iranian press reports.

On India’s independence day, 15th August 2018, India’s prime minister Narendra Modi announced that by 2022, “some of our young boys and girls will unfurl the Tricolour in space”.

Responding to the question from Hungarian television channel RTL, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Péter Szijjártó said that the government will spend HUF 10 billion over the next three years to be able to launch a Hungarian astronaut to space in 2024.

The Global Satellite Coalition (GSC), a group of seven trade associations representing the global satellite eco-system, has welcomed the decisions taken at the ITU World Radiocommunication Conference 2019 (WRC-19), Sharm-el-Sheikh, which allow satellite services to continue to bridge digital, education, health and social divides and connect more and more citizens around the world.

Testing of the ExoMars rover at Airbus in Toulouse has moved to the next stage with the start of the thermal vacuum testing (TVAC) which will last about 18 days.

The Hague International Space Resources Governance Working Group is pleased to announce the adoption of the Building Blocks for the Development of an International Framework on Space Resource Activities.

The Russian state space corporation, Roscosmos, has announced that it intends to initiate international talks to ban the testing and use of Kinetic Energy (KE) anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons.