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.
