Ukraine, Russia likely to sign agreement on cooperation on GLONASS program in early 2010

18:07

Ukraine and Russia are likely to sign an intergovernmental agreement on cooperation in the use and development of Russia's GLONASS global navigation satellite system in early 2010, according to the National Space Agency of Ukraine.

"I think the agreement is to be signed soon. It is likely to be signed in the beginning of 2010," Eduard Kuznetsov, the deputy head of the National Space Agency of Ukraine, said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.

"We, both Ukraine and Russia, are trying to make all of the space technologies we are working on nowadays, to be application-focused. While realizing the project, we will focus on consumer services," he said.

Ukraine has been preparing an intergovernmental agreement on cooperation in the sphere of using and developing Russia's GLONASS global navigation satellite system since 2008.

According to certain estimations, in the future GLONASS could compliment Europe's Galileo global navigation satellite system.

The European Union signed an agreement with Ukraine in December 2005 on cooperation in bringing Galileo into being. The accord was ratified by the Ukrainian parliament in 2007 and has also been ratified by 17 of the EU's 27 member countries.

Today Galileo comprises only two satellites, and the deadline for the planned enlargement of the system's group of satellites to 30 has been put back several years. GLONASS consists of 19 satellites, and another six satellites (of the GLONASS-M type) are to join the group before the end of 2009.

08.10.2009