Brazil, Ukraine to intensify aerospace cooperation

President Dilma Rousseff and her visiting Ukrainian counterpart Viktor Yanukovich Tuesday announced a plan to intensify aerospace cooperation. Yanukovich said the bilateral Alcantara Cyclone Space program is proceeding on target set by the two sides in 2010 and it is hoped that all the preparations would be done in 2013 for launching Ukraine-made space rockets in Brazil. He said Ukraine will invest 100 million U.S. dollars by the end of the year to match the amount already paid by Brazil, which has provided almost half of its share in the total investment of 585 million U.S. dollars. According to the agreement on the project, Brazilian will construct a port while Ukraine will build the Cyclone 4 rocket to be launched in Brazil's northeastern Alcantara Launch Center, whose equatorial location gave it an advantage to launch geosynchronous satellites. Yanukovich, who arrived in Brazil on Monday, also signed several cooperation agreements on agriculture, energy, trade and health.