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MINSK, 15 September (BelTA) – Belarus plans to launch the BKA-2 satellite in 2017, BelTA learned from Chairman of the Presidium of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus Vladimir Gusakov on 15 September.

The official said: “According to our calculations we plan to launch it in 2017 if everything goes okay.”

He explained that the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus had signed a contract with the Russian space agency Roscosmos on creating the satellite. “We are now in the active development phase. We were in negotiations before it, there were doubts. We were wondering about financing, components, and electronics. We have since decided that we are going to launch the satellite together with Russian colleagues,” said the Chairman of the Presidium of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus.

According to Vladimir Gusakov, the looks of the first and second Belarusian satellites will be similar but their content will differ greatly, in particular, the image resolution ability. While the current satellite boasts a two-meter resolution, the new one will have a resolution of less than one meter, said the official.

The new satellite will use electronics of Belarusian-Russian make and will be much more reliable.

“Before the launch we need to complete a set of fundamental researches, theoretical calculations. We also need to collect orders and carry out tests and experiments,” explained Vladimir Gusakov.

BelTA reported earlier that during the international aviation and space salon MAKS 2015 the Russian corporation VNIIEM and the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus signed an agreement on the development and consequent operation of a satellite for the remote sensing of the Earth — BKA-2.

Prior to that Russia and Belarus had created joint ground-based infrastructure to control the Belarusian satellite (BKA) and the Russian one (Canopus B) as well as the system to receive and process the data the satellites send.