Proposal for cooperation on space debris research

On 23 January 2026, the Astronomical Observatory was visited by Mr. Zachary Han, a representative of the Chinese company ZSP, organized by the National Council for Coordination of Cooperation with the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China. At the very beginning of the meeting, the Director of the Astronomical Observatory, Prof. Dr. Luka Č. Popović, presented a brief history of the Observatory, with special emphasis on current research activities, as well as the infrastructure that the Observatory has at its disposal both at Zvezdara and at the Vidojevica Astronomical Station. He also briefly described the work of two Research Units (RUs) at the Observatory, i.e. the RU for space research and technologies and the RU for monitoring solar activity, climate change and light pollution. Mr. Han pointed out the importance of space debris research, given that this problem, with the increasing presence of satellites in orbit around the Earth, is becoming more and more serious. In order to analyze space debris, he proposes the creation of a network of automated observing stations that would deal with these observations. In addition to the director, the discussion with Mr. Han was also attended by Dr. Jelena Kovačević Dojčinović, Dr. Milan Stojanović and Dr. Srdjan Samurović, and the conclusion was that the Astronomical Observatory is ready to join this observational project and that as soon as it has more technical details, it will analyze its possible contribution. After the discussion, Mr. Han visited the Large Refractor Pavilion.