Japan and Ukraine cooperate to monitor satellites of nuclear disaster areas

On Monday, Ukraine and Japan agreed to deploy a joint satellite project to monitor the situation of Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear power plants, where the world's largest nuclear disasters have ever happened. out.

After talks with Ukrainian counterpart Leonid Kozhara, Japan's Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida said: "We agreed to cooperate in the space sector to control areas around Chernobyl and Fukushima" .

This cooperation project is expected to put 8 small satellites into orbit in 2014 to gather information about the effects of radioactive dust on the vicinity of the 2 factories.

The French news agency AFP reports from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, it will be a cooperative project between Tokyo University and the Ukrainian National Space Agency. Japanese-developed satellites will be launched into space by Ukrainian missiles.

In March 2011, an earthquake and tsunami destroyed the Fukushima nuclear power plant in northeastern Japan. It is estimated that the recovery of this disaster will take about 40 years.

Although no death has been recorded as a direct consequence of the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear reactor, most residents of the area around the plant have been evacuated, tens of thousands of people. still can't come back.

According to information Japan confirmed on Monday, each satellite in the cooperation program is expected to weigh about 60kg with a diameter of about 50cm. They will bring images to Earth every 2 hours from a height of about 600 km. These satellites will also receive signals from sensors installed on the ground to gather information from areas where radiation levels exceed standards.

One day earlier, Mr. Kishida visited Chernobyl, where the disaster occurred in 1986. This visit was part of his plan to Ukraine to learn from the disaster relief efforts for Fukushima. .

The explosion at the No. 4 reactor of the early morning Chernobyl power plant on April 26, 1986 caused radioactive material to spill out of the air, spreading from the Soviet Union to all over Europe. According to official figures of Ukraine, more than 25,000 workers from Ukraine, Russia and Belarus died due to this disaster.

The two disasters in Japan and Ukraine mentioned above are classified as level 7 on the 7-point scale on the scale of the United Nations nuclear damage.