auto-update week 33

europe/bu.json

@@ -1269,6 +1269,17 @@
       "text": "Bulgaria became a member of NATO in 2004; Bulgaria conducts its own air policing mission, but because of Russian aggression in the Black Sea region, NATO allies have sent detachments of fighters to augment the Bulgarian Air Force since 2014 (2023)"
     }
   },
+  "Space": {
+    "Space agency/agencies": {
+      "text": "Space Research and Technology Institute - Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (SRTI-BAS; formed in 1987 but originated from the Central Laboratory for Space Research and the Bulgarian Aerospace Agency, which was established in 1969) (2023)"
+    },
+    "Space program overview": {
+      "Space programs overview": {
+        "text": "has a long history of involvement in space going back to the 1960s; develops, produces, and operates satellites, mostly with foreign partners; researches, develops, and produces other space technologies, including those related to astrophysics, remote sensing, data exploitation, optics, and electronics; has specialized in producing scientific instruments for space research; has more than 20 research institutes; Cooperating State of the European Space Agency (ESA) since 2015; cooperates with a variety of foreign space agencies and commercial entities, including those of the ESA and EU (and bi-laterally with their member states), India, Japan, Russia, and the US (2023)"
+      },
+      "note": "<strong>note:</strong> further details about the key activities, programs, and milestones of the country’s space program, as well as government spending estimates on the space sector, appear in Appendix S"
+    }
+  },
   "Terrorism": {
     "Terrorist group(s)": {
       "text": "Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham (ISIS); Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps/Qods Force",