Russia and USA interrupted cooperation in the field of space exploration particularly the agreement for joint protection against asteroids but it won’t prevent private cooperation B612 Space Exploration Company representative Diane Murphy stated in the interview.
“Russia has a gorgeous space program. At the present time we (as a private company) do not cooperate with Russia but we do not exclude the possibility of such cooperation in the future”, – Murphy reported.
Currently the organization is working on Sentinel space telescope project. The telescope is to be able to locate small asteroids (less than 1 km in diameter) presenting potential threat to the Earth while NSA telescopes are able to locate just 1% of the asteroids 140 meters in size but nevertheless these asteroids are very dangerous since they can destroy a town.
As a result of the tense political situation with Crimea Russian Federation and USA cancelled the agreement for cooperation in the field of nuclear and energetic explorations concluded in September 2013.
The agreement included also a clause concerning cooperation in the field of protection against asteroids.
“I believe it is annoying that politicians having nothing to do with space affect badly our possibilities to work on these important issues, – Murphy noted. – If you locate an asteroid having 10 years left you can determine its trajectory and displace it”.
Ministry of Emergency Situations and Roscosmos announced their plans to improve the Earth anti-asteroid protection systems after the fall of Chelyabinsk meteorite in February 2013. Agreement with USA was concluded in the framework of these measures.
Meteorite later called “Chelyabinsk” fell in Chelyabinsk region on February 15, 2013.
Burst wave damaged los of buildings, more than 1,6 thousand people were injured.
