President of the Brazilian Space Agency says that the initiative seeks to “reduce space technological asymmetry between the countries”
The president of (Brazilian Space Agency), said on Tuesday (29.abr.br.2025) that Brazil works to include in the constellation of BRICS remote sensing satellites the new members of the group. According to him, the goal is “Reduce spatial technological asymmetry among countries” e “Discuss sustainability in space”.
The agreement was signed on August 18, 2021, when they made up the group only Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Now are also part of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, Indonesia and Iran. The initiative allows cooperation between spatial agencies to build a virtual constellation of remote sensing satellites, a system of sharing system Data, emergency and on demand, consisting of structures already in orbit.
The space network is also presented as a tool to help monitor deforestation and combat the effects of climate change and natural disasters.
Chamon said, for example, that countries want to use the network to produce images of Belém (PA) and show their capacity in the sector. The goal is that this will be done until the COP (United Nations Conference on Climate Change), which will be held in the capital of Para in November.
Understand how it works
Today, the satellites of the BRICS Remote Sensing Satellitis Constellation are:
- CBERS-4 (in conjunction with Brazil and China);
- Canopus-in (da rocks);
- Resource-2 and 2a (from India);
- GF-6 E ZY-3/02 (DA China).
Land stations located in Cuiabá, Moscow (Russia), Shadnagar-Hyderabad (India), Sanya (China) and Hartebeesthoek (South Africa) will receive data from constellation satellites. Each country can only have access to spatial images of the territories themselves, according to Chamon.
Russia proposed the creation of a BRICS Space Council to coordinate front projects. The proposal was formally submitted by the delegation during the BRICS Space Agency Heads, held in Moscow in May 2024.
Brazil is in favor of the creation of the Council.“The main Brazilian argument for this is that BRICS is not a formal mechanism. Countries gather in an informal way, it is not a spatial organism. We need a mechanism to organize these projects and vote these projects more concretely.”said the president of AEB.
Spatial garbage
According to Marco Antonio Chamon, the terrestrial orbit increasingly accumulates space waste. According to him, as more companies interested in exploring the space and launch rockets, they will “Leaving trail.”
“Satellites die and are running out of space in space. And this causes difficulties. It has already caused difficulties for Brazil itself. We have had satellites our affected by very small pieces.”these.
Incidents are common, according to the agency, but with the increase in the amount of space waste, there is a high proportional in the reports. “This kind of phenomenon has become increasingly frequent. It is one of the aspects of sustainability that we discuss, that we want to move forward.”Disse Chamon.
According to the (European space agency) there are over 130 million spatial garbage fragments in terrestrial orbit, including 40,500 larger than 10 cm, 1.1 million between 1 cm and 10 cm, and 130 million objects between 1 mm and 1 cm.
Spatial affairs
Brazil hosted on Monday (28.abr) and this Thursday (29.abr), in Rio, the 1st Meeting of Ministers of BRICS to address space affairs. Were present at the meeting:
- Brazil – Mauro Vieira, Minister of Foreign Affairs;
- China – Wang Yi, Minister of Foreign Affairs;
- Egypt – Ambassador Ragui El Etreby, Sherpa;
- Ethiopia – Gedion Timothewos Hessebon, Minister of Foreign Affairs;
- India – Ambassador Dammu Ravi, Sherpa;
- Indonesia – Embaiador Tri Tharyat, Sherpa;
- Iran -Seyed Rasoul Mohajer, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs on Economic Diplomacy;
- Russia – Sergey Viktorovich Lavrov, Minister of Foreign Affairs;
- Saudi Arabia -Waleed Al-Khuraiji, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs;
- South Africa – Ronald Lamola, Minister of International Relations and Cooperation; and
- United Arab Emirates – Reem Bint Ebrahim Al Hashimy, Minister of State for International Cooperation.
This report was written by the trainee of Poder360 João Paulo Caires under the supervision of Assistant Isadora Isora Albernaz.
