ST. PETERSBURG, June 8. /TASS/. Dmitry Rogozin, the director general of Russia’s space corporation Roscosmos, has invited Chinese partners to join forces in projects that envisage a lunar station and remote sensing of the earth.

"It’s high time… to explain what we mean by a moon base. We would like to deploy a space monitoring system in the area with the lowest possible level of man-made ‘noises,’ to study the far space with an eye on international cooperation in protection against asteroids and comets. Let’s do it together," Rogozin said at the Space Economy session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF).

According to the Russian official, Roscosmos was ready to combine Russia’s Luna-26 mission, due in 2023, with the Chinese lunar project.

"This spacecraft is compatible with equipment of our Chinese friends. We have to begin from something," the Roscosmos head said.

He also spoke of the two states’ satellite navigation systems - Russia’s Glonass and China’s Beidou, and of possible cooperation in the production of electronic components.

"China’s microelectronics industry is good, but what’s the reason for us to create something that has already been created. We can set up design centers, our personnel is talented and skilled. We need to establish several design bureaus and print the readymade products, supplying the instrument-making industries of China and Russia," he went on.

"We are ready to move toward joint businesses, up to creating a joint remote sensing [satellite] constellation and to occupy a joint share on this market, up to creating joint operators who could commercialize the results of high-precision scanning of the Earth," Rogozin said, adding that he saw no political obstacles in this sphere of cooperation.

The 2019 St. Petersburg International Economic Forum is being held on June 6-8. The forum’s motto this year is "Creating a Sustainable Development Agenda". The organizer for SPIEF-2019 is the Roscongress Foundation. TASS is a media partner, the official photo hosting agency and the operator of SPIEF’s presentation zones with support from multinational firm EY, and the Foreign Investment Advisory Council in Russia.