Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to sign relevant documents during his visit to Brazil.
"These satellites will monitor crop capacity levels, as well. In addition, they can be used to track the movement of designated objects on the territory of a country," the head of Roskosmos revealed.
The perspectives of the Russian-Brazilian cooperation in the sphere of space exploration have been outlined the in 1997 intergovernmental agreement "On cooperation in peaceful research and exploration of outer space."
According to Mr. Perminov, Brazil is willing to establish close cooperation with Russia in this sphere. "I would mention in this case objective and subjective factors. Objectively, Russia and the United States are two space superpowers. However, at the tragic time of the 2003 VLS-1 rocket explosion at the space center in Alcantara (Brazil), Russia was the only country to extend a helping hand to Brazilian colleagues," the head of Roskosmos emphasized.
Russian specialists worked at the site of the incident. They came up with a series of solutions and presented them to the Brazilian side. Brazilian experts decided that safety recommendations presented by Russian specialists were the most acceptable both in technical and financial terms. The Russian Federal Space Agency had also outlined several technical and organizational solutions that helped the Brazilians to start immediately the reconstruction of the space center and make relevant corrections in the design of the VLS rocket.
"All our recommendations were considered the most optimal by the Brazilian side," Mr. Perminov stressed.
In the middle of 2004, a large Brazilian delegation led by the newly-appointed head of the Brazilian Space Agency visited Russia on the invitation by Roskosmos. As a result of negotiations between the heads of respective space agencies, the sides developed a concept of bilateral cooperation in the sphere of space exploration, which is supposed to receive the status of an intergovernmental agreement during the upcoming summit in Brazil.
