An agreement on cooperation in ensuring complementarity of the global navigation satellite systems GLONASS and Beidou was also signedMOSCOW, December 29.
/tass/. Roscosmos and the Chinese National Space Administration (CNSA) signed a cooperation program for 2023-2027 at the end of November. This is stated in the message of Roscosmos, distributed on Thursday.
This year, the state corporation stressed, the Russian Federation and China continued to intensify cooperation in the space sphere. "On November 25, a program for the development of cooperation in space activities between Roscosmos and the Chinese National Space Administration for 2023-2027 was signed," the message reads.
Roscosmos announced the signing on the same day of an agreement between the governments of Russia and China on cooperation on the creation of an International Scientific Lunar Station (MNLS), which was previously reported by the head of the state corporation Yuri Borisov. An agreement on cooperation in ensuring complementarity of the global navigation satellite systems GLONASS and Beidou was also signed. "And in September, contracts were signed for the mutual placement of GLONASS and Beidou ground stations, according to which it is planned to build three Russian measuring stations in the Chinese cities of Changchun, Urumqi and Shanghai and three Chinese ones in the Russian cities of Obninsk, Irkutsk and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky," the state corporation added.
Roscosmos and CNSA in June last year, within the framework of the Global Conference on Space Exploration (GLEX-2021), presented a roadmap for MNLS. According to the information provided, the construction of the station should be fully completed by 2035. From 2026 to 2030, two missions are planned to test landing and cargo delivery technologies, as well as return lunar rock samples to Earth. From 2031 to 2035, the parties will deploy infrastructure in orbit and on the surface of the Moon, including communication complexes, as well as electric power, research and other equipment.
According to the project roadmap, the station's transport infrastructure will include research and technical lunar rovers, as well as a jumping robot. The parties plan to equip the station with several smart mini-rovers designed to explore the surface of the Earth's natural satellite.
