Russia proposes building EO satellite data receiving station in South Africa - Roscosmos

HERMANUS, South Africa. July 24 (Interfax) - The BRICS countries can develop their joint infrastructure by having a station built in South Africa to receive data from Earth observation (EO) satellites, Roscosmos General Director Yury Borisov said.

"Roscosmos is proposing to the South African space agency to consider the matter of deploying on South African territory a Russian receiving station providing reception of information from Russian and foreign Earth remote-sensing satellites, including prospective ones," Borisov told the BRICS space cooperation committee on Monday.

Russian enterprises could supply South Africa with a full set of equipment for the reception, processing, and storage of EO data, he said.

Russia can also upgrade the existing receiving stations in South Africa, he said.

Borisov proposed granting access to national EO data geo-websites for requesting archived data in their own interests.

"This would widen the circle of potential users and foster the development of new technologies of processing and interpretation of the results of satellite observation," Borisov said.

To speed up the process of providing users with imagery, data from the joint EO satellite grouping could be fed to national receiving stations, he said.