State Space Agency of Ukraine


The State Space Agency of Ukraine is the Ukrainian government agency responsible for space policy and programs. Along with the Ukrainian Defense Industry and the Antonov Aeronautical Scientific-Technical Complex, it is a major state complex of the national defense industry of Ukraine. The agency was formed in 1992 based on the Soviet space program potential based in Ukraine following dissolution of the Soviet Union.
The State Space Agency of Ukraine does not specialize in manned astronautical programs. It is the second of two direct Soviet space program descendants. The agency does not have its own spaceport and until 2014, depended on the resources of the Russian Federal Space Agency.
Until December 9, 2010, the agency was known as Національне космічне агентство України, НКАУ, the National Space Agency of Ukraine
Until 2014 launches were conducted at Kazakhstan's Baikonur and Russia's Plesetsk Cosmodromes. After the Russian annexation of Crimea, launches were conducted on Sea Launch's floating platform, which was soon mothballed. NSAU has ground control and tracking facilities in Kiev and a control center in Dunaivtsi. Other facilities in Yevpatoria, Crimea were abandoned after the annexation by Russia.
Ukrainian spacecraft include a few kinds for domestic and foreign use and international cooperation. Ukraine has supplied Russia with military satellites and their launch vehicles, a unique relationship in the world.

Main tasks

NSAU is a civil body in charge of co-ordinating the efforts of government installations, research, and industrial companies. Several space-related institutes and industries are directly subordinated to NSAU. However, it is not a united and centralized system immediately participating in all stages and details of space programs. A special space force in the military of Ukraine is also absent.
The agency oversees launch vehicle and satellite programs, co-operative programs with the Russian Aviation and Space Agency, the European Space Agency, NASA, and commercial ventures. International participation includes Sea Launch and the Galileo positioning system.

Space program

Space activities in Ukraine have been pursued over a 10-year span in strict accordance with National Space Programs. Each of them was intended to address the relevant current issues to preserve and further develop the space potential of Ukraine.
The First Program was called upon to keep up the research and industrial space-related potentiality for the benefit of the national economy and state security as well as to be able to break into the international market of space services. The Second Program was aimed at creating an internal market of space services, conquering the international space markets by presenting in-house products and services and integrating Ukraine into the worldwide space community.
The National Space Program of Ukraine for 2003-2007, which was adopted by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on October 24, 2002, outlines the main goals, assignments, priorities, and methods of maintaining space activity in Ukraine.
The Ukrainian Cabinet of Ministers announced its plans on 13 April 2007 to allocate 312 million euros to the National Space Program for 2007-2011.
Specific programs
Goals of the program
The agency is a minor descendant of the Soviet space program that was passed mostly to the Russian Federal Space Agency. The agency took over all the former Soviet defense industrial complex that was located on the territory of Ukraine. The space industry of Ukraine started in 1937 when a group of scientists led by Heorhiy Proskura launched a large stratospheric rocket near Kharkiv.
In 1954, the Soviet government transformed the car producer Yuzhmash into a rocket company. Since that time, the city of Dnipropetrovsk has been known in the Anglophone world as the Soviet Rocket City.
As of April 2009, the Ukrainian National Space Agency was planning to launch a Ukrainian communications satellite by September 2011 and a Sich-2 before the end of 2011.
The Ukrainian built RD-843 engine is used for the upper stage of the European Vega rocket.
The first stage of the U.S. Antares rocket was developed by the Yuznoye SDO and produced by Yuzhmash.

National enterprises of the space industry

Most of the enterprises are located in Dnipro or Kiev
;Dnipro
;Kiev
;Kharkiv
;Crimea

Launch vehicles

During 1991-2007, a total of 97 launches of Ukrainian LV were conducted, including, but not limited to launches on the Sea Launch mobile launch pad. In 2006 Ukrainian launch vehicles accounted for 12% of all launches into space in the world.
Ukrainian companies Yuzhnoye Design Office and Yuzhmash have engineered and produced seven types of launch vehicles. Adding strapon boosters to launch vehicles may expand the family of Mayak, which is the latest launch vehicle developed.

Retired

The Svityaz, Oril and Sura aerospace rocket complexes is intended for launching of various spacecraft into circular, elliptic and high-altitude circular, including the geostationary, orbits. Svityaz ASC represents a unique system that allows launch of spacecraft without utilization of complicated ground infrastructure. The Svityaz is launched directly from a modified version of An-225 Mriya, a Ukrainian airplane and airplane carrier that is currently the largest one in the world. Modified Mriya that will be used to carry Svityaz has been designated a code of An-225-100.
The aircraft is equipped with special devices to secure the LV above the fuselage. The operators and onboard equipment are located in the pressure-tight cabins. The Svityaz LV is being created on the basis of units, aggregates and systems of Zenit LV. It consists of three stages of non-toxic propellants — liquid oxygen and kerosene. The launch vehicle is injected into the geostationary orbit using a solid-propellant apogee stage.

Sea Launch project

Sea Launch is joint venture space transportation company, partially owned by companies in Ukraine which handle operations for the National Space Agency. Sea Launch offers a mobile sea platform, used for spacecraft launches of commercial payloads on specialized Ukrainian Zenit 3SL rockets. The main advantage of the floating cosmodrome is its placement directly on the equator. It allows taking the greatest advantage of Earth's rotation to deliver payloads into orbit at low expense.
Within the framework of the project the space rocket complex was developed, which consists of four components:
Sea Launch mothballed its ships and put operations on long-term hiatus in 2014.

Spaceports

Ukraine does not have own spaceports, but leases elsewhere.
Ukraine produced the Sich and Okean Earth observation satellites, as well as a few other types of satellites and the Coronas solar observatory in cooperation with Russia.
The NSAU currently is working on further Sich series satellites: Sich-2M, Sich-3, Sich-3-O and Sich-3-P; Lybid M and an Ukrselena satellite to fly around the Moon in 2017.

Human flights

Prior to Ukraine's independence, several Ukrainians flew in space under the Soviet flag. Ukrainian Pavlo Popovych was the fourth cosmonaut in space, in 1962.
The first Ukrainian to fly in space under the Ukrainian flag was Leonid K. Kadenyuk on 13 May 1997. He was a payload specialist on NASA's STS-87 Space Shuttle mission. It was an international spaceflight mission, involving crew members from NASA, NSAU and NASDA.

Director-General