17 December 2024
Belarus honors Roscosmos representatives
Representatives of the State Corporation for Space Activities Roscosmos have been honored in a ceremony in the Belarusian Embassy in Moscow on 17 December, BelTA learned.
In accordance with the decisions by Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko, the Order of Friendship of Peoples has been presented to Director General of Roscosmos Yury Borisov. Executive Director for Manned Space Programs at Roscosmos Sergei Krikalev, test cosmonaut of the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center Oleg Novitsky and head of the Center Maksim Kharlamov have been presented with the president’s letters of commendation. The Roscosmos representatives were honored for services to space activities, scientific research, training of highly qualified personnel, and international cooperation.
“One of the important stages of building the Union State was cooperation in space. Today on behalf of Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko, I have the honor to celebrate the people who have made a great contribution to the first flight of Belarusian cosmonaut Marina Vasilevskaya and the induction of the Republic of Belarus into the club of space powers,” Belarusian Ambassador to Russia Aleksandr Rogozhnik said at the ceremony.
"We appreciate the high recognition of our work. We are very touched," General Director of Roscosmos Yury Borisov expressed gratitude on behalf of all the awardees.
He pointed out that space exploration plays a special role in the cooperation between Belarus and Russia. "We closely cooperate with Belarusian enterprises. Now we are working to create a Russian-Belarusian spacecraft for remote sensing of the Earth. We keep in touch with our colleagues from the Peleng enterprise, with the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus and the State Authority for Military Industry of Belarus. Our cooperation is only getting stronger. The flight of the first Belarusian cosmonaut Marina Vasilevskaya became a landmark event of this year. She completed training, implemented the whole planned program and made a significant contribution to space exploration," Yury Borisov said.
"Hopefully, this flight will not be the last one. We are developing a new Russian space station. We hope that there will be a place for Belarusian cosmonauts on this station. It will be even better if we together build a separate Belarusian module as part of our station, which will explore near-Earth space for many years," he stated.
