MINSK. June 19 (Interfax) – The implementation of Belarusian space projects should continue, President Alexander Lukashenko said.
“We do not have to be some space superpower, but we will continue our space program because we now have a good school,” Lukashenko told students of Minsk universities after the groundbreaking ceremony for a students’ campus in Minsk on Thursday.
We need to continue implementing our plans to create our own remote sensing satellite, the president said. “This satellite will be even better than the one that Russia ruined during launch [BelKA],” he said.
Belarus also plans to open its own Mission Control Center, Lukashenko said.
The launch of the first Belarusian satellite, BelKA, in July 2006 was a failure, resulting from the crash of the Russian Dnepr rocket shortly after launch from Baikonur. Apart from the Belarusian satellite, 17 other spacecraft were lost in the incident.
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