13 countries, including BRICS countries, have joined Russia and China in the work to create an International Scientific Lunar Station, announced Roscosmos Director General Dmitry Bakanov.
„Our joint initiative with China to create an International Scientific Lunar Station is actively developing. It has already been joined by 13 countries (Belarus, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Venezuela, South Africa, Egypt, Thailand, Serbia, Nicaragua, Senegal, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Bolivia), including BRICS colleagues (Egypt, Ethiopia, South Africa)“, Bakanov said at a meeting of the heads of the space agencies of the BRICS countries.
According to him, Russia has unique scientific schools in the field of studying Venus, and the Russian technology for landing there, on the Moon and on Mars, has not yet been repeated by anyone in the world. Russia's technological achievements in the field of deep space exploration can become the basis for international BRICS programs, Bakanov emphasized.
He recalled that spacecraft from China, India and the UAE have reached Mars, and these countries also have experience in exploring the Moon. The head of Roscosmos expressed hope that the number of such programs will grow, and their joint implementation will become many times more effective from a scientific point of view and more optimal for national budgets.
He called for cooperation in the field of training human resources in space and related industries and the development of joint student programs. Currently, according to Bakanov, more than 85 thousand students from the BRICS countries, more than half of whom are from China and India, are studying at Russian universities.