Russia&CIS

China and Belarus are negotiating the joint development of an Earth observation satellite according to the Deputy Chairman of the Presidium of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus Sergei Kilin.

The Proton rocket with non-Russian satellites is scheduled to take place in March 2019. The Eutelsat-5West and MEV-1 satellites will be put into orbit.

It was reported that S7 Space was ready to order up to 50 rockets from Roscosmos with an option for another 35 if Soyuz-5 met the company's requirements. However, as the general director of S7 Space Sergey Sopov pointed out, the Russian government had lost interest in his company immediately after the deal had been closed.

Russia is developing the Rokot-2 launch vehicle with a new control system. The project was first announced by the Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center in March this year.

According to the International Space Station Flight Schedule, U.S. astronauts will no longer be launched on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft in the fall of 2019.

The recent pronouncement by President Donald Trump that called for the creation of a separate U.S. Space Force has been met with some consternation by a number of commentators around the world. This reaction seems more concerned with the controversial persona of President Trump rather than with the policy substance behind the rhetoric.

The upcoming decline in the production of Proton-M rockets will increase their cost by 2 or 2.5 times.

If one wants to attract private companies and investments to the Russian space industry, it is necessary to amend the existing legislation.

Alexander Shaenko is a Moscow-based engineer and space enthusiast, the driving force behind the Mayak cubesat developed by space enthusiasts that was launched in 2017. He is currently working on a new space-related project. We talked to him about his past and present activities, his views on the current situation in the Russian space sector, ways to engage young people in space projects and much more.

August 15, 2018 at 18:51 UTC, a beacon signal was received from the SiriusSat-1 satellite. The SiriusSat-2 satellite has not made contact yet.