Scientists of the NAS of Belarus were awarded the star of the “Star of the Commonwealth” Prize for their great contribution to the development and successful implementation of the Belarusian-Russian programs in the space sector, the creation of a scientific and technical groundwork for the development of the space industry of the Republic of Belarus, the expansion and strengthening of cooperation between the CIS member states in the field of research in the peaceful uses of outer space.

The Belarusian research team includes Aleksander Tuzikov, General Director of the State Scientific Institution “The United Institute of Informatics Problems of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus”, doctor of physics and mathematics, professor, corresponding number; Sergey Zolotoy, Director of the Scientific and Engineering Republican Unitarian Enterprise “Geoinformation Systems”, candidate of technical sciences, and Sergey Karanyka, head of the department of joint programs of space and information technologies of the State Scientific Institution “The United Institute of Informatics Problems of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus”.

Over the past 20 years, the UIIP the NAS of Belarus and the UE “Geoinformation Systems”, as the main executors from the Belarusian side, together with the Russian colleagues, have successfully implemented the programs of the Union State “Cosmos-BR”, “Cosmos-SD”, “Cosmos-NT”, “Standardization-SD”, “Monitoring-SD” and are currently performed in the Union State “Integration-SD”. They obtained and planned results of these programs are aimed to expanding the common scientific, technical and information space of the two countries, integrating the ground and orbital space assets, as well as intellectual and industrial resources in the exploration and use of outer space for peaceful purposes.

The scientific and technical products created in the course of the implementation of these programs, the scientific and industrial experience gained in the implementation of complex projects in the space sphere formed the basis for the creation of the Belarusian space system for remote sensing of the Earth, which includes an orbital segment and ground infrastructure, made it possible to widely used in the national economy of Belarus as a result of and technologies for monitoring the Earth from space.

Along with this, the results obtained gave a powerful impetus to the development of new high technologies in our countries, including an instrument making, materials science, information technologies.

The experience in scientific and technical groundwork obtained as part of the implementation of these programs allowed the UE “Geoinformation Systems” to become the main executing organization in 2019-2020, to implement an international project – research work within the Eurasian Economic Commission – and to start implementing the interstate program of the Eurasian Economic Union “Integrated system of the member states of the Eurasian Economic Union for the production and provision of space and geoinformation products and services based on national sources of the Earth remote sensing data”. For the purpose of their successful implementation, cooperation was established with specialized organizations of the member states of the Eurasian Economic Union – Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia.

These achievements were highly appreciated by leading scientists and specialists of that space industry of Russia, Belarus and other CIS member states in the framework of the I – VII Belarusian space congresses, meetings of representatives are the executive authorities of the CIS member states on corporation in the space sphere, which he held on a regular basis with 2003 the UIIP the NAS of Belarus.

The Interstate Prize “Star of the Commonwealth” is annually awarded to representatives of the Commonwealth state for the most is annually awarded to representatives of the commonwealth state for the most significant successes in humanitarian work at the level of world achievements, which contributes to the development of each of the CIS member states and the Commonwealth as whole.