Colorado Springs, April 8 (Agency) The Brazilian Space Agency (AEB) would like to resume education courses with Russia, believing that the two countries have many capabilities to share, AEB President Carlos Moura told Sputnik on the sidelines of the Space Symposium. “We were planning how we can restart the education courses with Russia because some years ago, some special institutions in Russia, for example, MAI, Moscow Aviation Institute, they helped us on the design review of our small satellites,” Moura said. “So it’s something maybe we can restart because we have a lot of capabilities, so it’s good for us to exchange.” Moura went on to say that while there are no joint projects between Brazil and Russia, they are cooperating on ground stations for GLONASS.
“Russia has four stations in Brazil, they are installed in universities,” he explained. “That’s the unique cooperation we have.” In addition, BRICS has an agreement on a virtual constellation of remote sensing satellites, the space chief said. “So it’s something very new. But it’s a kind of consortium between the five countries. That’s what we have for the moment,” he noted. When asked about a possible meeting with Russian space agency Roscosmos, Moura said they do not have any specific plans. “They [Russia] probably will continue working with the ground stations,” he said. “And maybe we will after the tensions going down we can start to do discussions concerning cooperation. For example, one of the cooperation [projects]… is that we are opening in Brazil, the Regional Center for Space Technology.
The idea is to to foster the development of those capabilities, not only in Brazil, but in South America and Africa.” “And one of the models that we are following is the regional center that you opened in Russia,” he added. “Some of the Brazilians participated in the final review before UNOOSA [United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs] approved that regional center in Russia … So we install our regional center. Probably we will invite some Russian specialists to help us to make the final review, something that we can work together on in education.” Moura spoke on the sidelines of the 37th Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, which brings together representatives of the world’s space agencies, commercial space businesses as well as military, national security and intelligence agencies to discuss and plan the future of space exploration.