Russia, Turkey extend joint use of RTT-150 telescope in Turkey till 2028

MOSCOW, December 22. /TASS/. Russia and Turkey on Monday extended their agreement on joint use of the RTT-150 1.5-metre optical telescope till the year 2028. The telescope was built by the Leningrad Optico-mechanical Association and installed at Turkey’s State Observatory. It key task is ground-based support to orbital observatories, including the Planck space observatory operated by the European Space Agency /ESA/. It will soon be used to support the Russian-German space laboratory Spektr-RG after it is put in orbit. As many as 45 percent of observation time at the telescope in Turkey will allocated to Russia’s Kazan Federal University, 15 percent - to the Russian Institute of Space Research, and 40 percent - to Turkish universities. < href="http://itar-tass.com/en/non-political/768569"Read more