Bloomberg: Russia takes steps to create a Space Council with BRICS partners

Dmitry Bakanov attends a space forum in Moscow in April.Photographer: Alexander Nemenov/AFP/Getty Images

Russia and its partners in the BRICS group of countries are moving toward creating a council to coordinate cooperation in space, Roscosmos chief Dmitry Bakanov said in an interview in New Delhi.

The council’s work would include satellite-data sharing, joint missions and use of their respective orbital networks, he said on the sidelines of a gathering of BRICS leaders, Bloomberg writes.

Russia is seeking to deepen technological links with India and China while building BRICS — an acronym that stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — into a broader platform for cooperation outside Western-led institutions.

“The space council has been proposed and its formation is underway,” with an agenda that would include “data exchange, the use of joint constellations and the creation of various missions,” said Bakanov, Russia’s top space official.

The proposal, put forward last year, still needs to work through approval procedures among BRICS members, he said, without giving a deadline for its establishment. Members aren’t expected to sign an agreement at the summit in India, said Bakanov.

The proposed body wouldn’t amount to a BRICS equivalent of the European Space Agency, he said, but would help refine decisions agreed at the bloc level and oversee their implementation by member states.

Over the past 18 months, Moscow has provided India with high-resolution satellite imagery covering about 100,000 square kilometers (38,610 square miles), allowing New Delhi to use the data for its own purposes, Bakanov said.

The exchange is part of a BRICS initiative under which members share satellite imagery, he said.

Russia and India are discussing joint work on rocket engines and scientific experiments aboard future orbital stations, according to Bakanov. The countries have selected compatible orbital inclinations for both of their planned stations, potentially allowing them to conduct joint experiments and research, he said.

Russia is in talks with Indian officials about selling its rocket engines to India and licensing their production, the agency’s head said in 2025.

The broader BRICS space agenda includes a ground station in South Africa for Glonass, Moscow’s navigational satellite network, as well as Russian cooperation with China on the International Lunar Research Station, Bakanov said.

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