News

Roscosmos Public Council meeting

Roscosmos State Corporation held another meeting of the Public Council.

The meeting agenda included the following questions:

• Asteroid dander, ways of its prevention and Russia’s ways of participation in the international cooperation to protect the planet from space risks and dangers;
• Spektr-RG astrophysical laboratory role: new possibilities to explore the Universe;
• Measures to improve space activities safety including environmental safety.

Opening the third Public Council meeting in 2019, the Public Council chairman Igor Barmin stressed the relevance of the abovementioned tasks and introduced the speakers who informed the meeting participants on the modern views of the scientific community and Roscosmos organizations on the tasks, as well as ways of solving them.

Academic Advisor of the Institute of Astronomy of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), RAS Space Council member Boris Shustov told the meeting about the peculiarities to study space dangers including comet and asteroid risks and stressed the necessity of a systematic approach to solve the problem.

Roscosmos International Cooperation Department representative Vasily Gudnov spoke about the international cooperation in dealing with asteroid danger and battling space garbage. Members of the Public Council also listened to Alexander Lutovinov, RAS Space Research Institute Deputy Director, who spoke about the work of Russo-German astrophysical observatory Spektr-RG that was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on July 13, 2019.

Spektr-RG is a unique world-class Russian observatory equipped with two telescopes. A major capacity was created while building this spacecraft to be used for future development and solving important fundamental and applied tasks. A new level of cooperation between Roscosmos, Rosatom and Russian Acadeny of Sciences was reached while working to create Spektr-RG.

Spektr-RG is expected to carry out astrophysical research for six and a half years including four years of scanning the sky of stars and two and a half years surveying point objects in the Universe according to the world scientific community requests.

TsNIIMash Space Activities Safety Center Chief Igor Bakaras presented the report about the existing automated system to prevent dangerous situations in space and the world’s practice.

TsENKI Division on Rocket Drop Zones Andrey Voronin touched upon the topic to ensure space activities safety while launching space rockets.

The meeting participants actively discussed the reports and materials, who agreed that battling space garbage and creating ways of its processing are the vital tasks for the international space activities.

The next Roscosmos Public Council meeting is scheduled for the end of Q4, 2019.