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Schematic design of new Belarusian-Russian satellite nearly ready
Piotr Vityaz. An archive photo
MINSK, 10 April (BelTA) – The schematic design of a new Belarusian-Russian satellite for the remote sensing of Earth is nearly ready, BelTA learned from Piotr Vityaz, Chief of Staff of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus (NASB), at a press conference on 10 April.
According to the source, the new satellite will boast a higher resolution. It is being developed by Roscosmos and the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus with assistance of OAO Peleng. The process is in the final stage. Technical parameters have been agreed. Since it is a joint project, both Russia and Belarus will be able to receive the data. It is now necessary to take care of the ground component and personnel training. It will be necessary to change the ground infrastructure, equipment, software, and establish communication with Russian colleagues, the official said. The work is already in progress.
Boris Chernukho, Deputy Director for Science at the Geoinformation Systems enterprise of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, said that as part of the project Russia will take care of developing and manufacturing the service platform of the satellite. Russia will also handle assembly and testing of the whole satellite in addition to orbit insertion. Belarusian companies will be the ones to create optic and electronic core equipment. Apart from that, Belarusian and Russian companies will work together to create parts of the ground infrastructure to control the satellite, receive, process, and distribute the data it will send.
The full-scale engineering development and manufacturing of the satellite is supposed to begin in 2020. The satellite is supposed to be inserted into orbit in 2023.
According to Boris Chernukho, the idea to create the new satellite was prompted by the successful operation of the current Belarusian satellite and Russian satellites of the Canopus series. Plans have been made to create a new space system based on a satellite with an extremely high spatial resolution. This equipment will be developed by Belarusian OAO Peleng. The project is supposed to produce a new system with a satellite on par with technical and economic parameters of the world’s best analogs. The combination of these parameters will give the product indisputable competitive advantages. Once the project is implemented, two commercial components will be realized: sales of images with unique characteristics and services based on them in addition to sales of the highly competitive space systems themselves.
Images will be taken in a panchromatic mode with the resolution as good as at least 0.35m. Apart from that, HD video recording will be enabled as well as high-resolution ultra-spectrum imaging. The satellite will be able to take shots of at least 300,000km2 per day and at least 100,000km2 in stereo mode. “The data the satellite will provide, advanced processing technologies, and the resulting geoinformation products will allow providing satellite monitoring services to customers all over the world on a whole new level,” Boris Chernukho was convinced.
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