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Belarus abandons plans to launch earth-imaging satellite this year

Belarus' Earth-imaging satellite will not be launched into orbit this year, Pyotr Vitsyaz, first deputy chairman of the National Academy of Sciences, told BelaPAN.

The satellite's systems are undergoing quality tests, Dr. Vitsyaz said. Although all of them were operational separately, the general control software did not always work properly, he noted.

The satellite was initially expected to be launched in the first quarter of 2011.

The satellite mission control center is to be located at the United Institute of Informatics Problems of the National Academy of Sciences. A control and tracking station is under construction in the village of Pleshchanitsy in the Lahoysk district, Minsk region. The modernization of a receiver antenna on the roof of the United Institute of Informatics Problems is nearing completion. The antenna was originally made for Belarus' first space satellite, BelKA (Belarusian Spacecraft), whose launch in July 2006 proved unsuccessful. Russia's RS-20 Dnepr rocket carrying it and 16 other satellites crashed back to Earth in July 2006 slightly more than a minute after the take-off.