Russia, Ukraine to start space experiment to study Earth's ionosphere in 2015

Russia and Ukraine plan to launch the Ionosat space project to study the Earth's ionosphere in 2015, Director of the Pushkov Institute of Terrestrial Magnetism, Ionosphere and Radio Wave Propagation Vladimir Kuznetsov said on Tuesday.

"We hope that in 2015 we will launch the first of three satellites for the coordinated measurements of the Earth's ionosphere at different points," he said at an international scientific conference in Moscow.

According to him, a Russian satellite will be based on the Karat platform developed by Russia's Lavochkin Research and Production Association. The Ionosat project will also involve a Ukrainian satellite.

Kuznetsov also said that information about the ionosphere could help in earthquake forecasting.

In turn, Director of the Space Research Institute of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Oleh Fedorov said that the equipment, which will be installed on the Ukrainian satellite, is currently being tested on the Sich-2 satellite. According to him, Poland may also take part in the Ionosat project.