Belarus Officially Supports China's ILRS Lunar Base Program

Illustration of ILRS infrastructure (photo: dock. CNSA)

JAKARTA - After a video conference with the Chinese National Space Agency (CNSA), Belarus decided to join the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) program that China is developing.

As a form of agreement, Chairman of the Presidium of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus (NASB) Vladimir Gusakov and CNSA Administrator Zhang Kejian signed a cooperation declaration on October 23.

After formalizing the cooperation between the two through signing a declaration, Belarus will participate in the process of creating and operating the ILRS, quoting from Spacenews.

From the official NASB report, the two parties will carry out fundamental and applied research in the fields of space engineering and technology, new materials and electronic component bases, and many others.

CNSA and NASB also agreed to develop a roadmap containing science and technology projects related to the creation and operation of ILRS.

The ILRS project itself will be led by China to build a research base on the Moon in the 2030s. This project is often compared to the Artemis program of the United States Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

So far, CNSA has succeeded in gathering 10 parties to support the ILRS program which has been designed since 2010. A number of countries that have contributed include Belarus, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Russia, Venezuela and South Africa.

Meanwhile, the other four parties were represented by organizations and institutes such as the Asia-Pacific Space Cooperation Organization (ASPCO), nanoSPACE AG from Switzerland, the International Lunar Observatory Association (ILOA) from Hawaii, and the National Astronomical Research Institute of Thailand (NARIT).

Note. Photo: