Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law to ratify a major cooperation agreement between Russia and Algeria in the field of use of outer space for peaceful purposes, including manned spaceflight.
According to agencies, the document which was signed between the two countries on June 15, 2023 during the state visit of the President of the Republic Abdelmadjid Tebboune, to Moscow, was published Friday in the Russian official journal.
This agreement sets a basis “ organizational and legal » for cooperation between Algeria and Russia in the space field.
It covers many areas such as cooperation in the field of human spaceflight, astrophysical and planetary exploration, remote sensing, communications and satellite navigation.
Russia – Algeria: what the space agreement ratified by Putin provides
It also encompasses information technologies and services, human spaceflight, space meteorology and geodesy, space biology and medicine.
The agreement also mentions cooperation in the provision and use of spacecraft launch services. Algeria has often used Russian launchers to put its Alsat 1 satellites into orbit from the Plesetsk cosmodrome.
This Algerian-Russian agreement also affects the areas of specialist training, protection of the space environment and international legal regulation of space activities.
The document ratified by President Putin also sets the conditions for financing joint space activities, the exchange of information, the procedure for resolving disputes between the parties, as well as the aspect related to compensation for damage.
The agreement will be managed on the Algerian side by Asal (Algerian Space Agency) and on the Russian side by Roscosmos, the agency responsible for Russia’s civil space program.
In its 2020-2040 program, Asal “ will work to continue the process of mastering all segments of space technologies and to promote investments to make them a lever for economic, scientific and societal development, a locomotive towards the digital and knowledge economy society ».
Algeria, which has already put several satellites into orbit thanks to Russia and China, plans to launch two other satellites, Alsat 3 (earth observation) and Alcomsat-2 (communication).
In 2021, during the forest fires which devastated Kabylia, Asal used the images provided by its satellites to help the authorities in the investigation into the criminal origin of the fires which left more than 200 dead.
