BRICS Summit: Members strengthen space cooperation

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Now we go to the upcoming BRICS meeting. The five nations have strengthened cooperation in many fields, including in space. CGTN's Jim Spellman is in Xiamen and brings us this report.

BRICS--- Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - five countries working together on earth, now have an eye toward the heavens. Collaborating on projects in space.

Victoria Samson is with the Secure World Foundation, an organization that promotes peaceful uses of space that contribute to stability on earth.

VICTORIA SAMSON SECURE WORLD FOUNDATION "Space is inherently international. The things you do in space affect other people's ability to utilize space. And so there is a lot of interest to working cooperatively."

The first BRICS space project is a remote sensing satellite constellation- satellites from the BRICS' countries sharing data as they observe the earth's environment - In the years to come a brand new satellite array will be designed and built through BRICS'collaboration.

VICTORIA SAMSON SECURE WORLD FOUNDATION "It speaks to how important that kind of data has become, from looking at environmental security to looking at disaster management to looking at economic development, so I think it's impressive that the BRICS countries are working together on this remote sensing constellation."

Each BRICS country has its own space program. India has a large space agency while Brazil and South Africa are still developing their programs. Russia -- then part of the the Soviet Union--- was first into space with the Sputnik satellite in 1957. And China's space program has been advancing at a rapid pace.

ZHANG ZHIFEN JIUQUAN SATELLITE LAUNCH CENTER I declare that the Quantum Experiments at Space Scale mission was a complete success.

Future Chinese objectives include missions to the Moon and Mars.

JIM SPELLMAN XIAMEN Each country will maintain its own independent space program, but cooperation could lead to improvements for each nation's space programs and may help the BRICS nations claim a bigger piece of the lucrative market for space-based technologies. Jim Spellman, CGTN, Xiamen.