On legal and economical aspects of the joint earth remote sensing system development by Russia and Belarus

The paper considers the stages of development and the current status of the joint Russia-Belarus Earth remote sensing system. The development and the deployment of the space system takes place as part of the Russia-Belarus Union State program of scientific and technical cooperation. A number of legal aspects of the project management and implementation are discussed, including the harmonization of technical standards, synchronization of actions in time, progress evaluation, financial management, etc. The project of the joint Earth remote sensing system of Russia and Belarus with the first satellite launched in 2012 is aimed at strengthen the scientific and technical partnership between two countries, to provide end-users with inexpensive high-quality remote sensing data addressing a wide range of socio-economic challenges, and also to build a partnership allowing for-profit utilization of the system's capacity. The joint Russia-Belarus venture was established in 2014 as a pilot cooperative project. The goal of the created JV is to promote the distribution of Earth remote sensing data. First practical results of the usage of the system and the expected socio-economic and business results are also discussed.