Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars
By Aussiegirl
I didn't know that Ukraine even had a space agency. Now they are planning to go to the moon with NASA:
NASA and the Ukrainian space agency are preparing unmanned flights to the moon under a joint project, the Interfax-Ukraine news agency reported.
Eduard Kuznetsov, deputy director general of the National Space Agency of Ukraine, said the first launch is scheduled for late 2006 or early 2007 and Ukraine will provide the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration with the Dnipro rocket.
"Both we and NASA are interested in this project," Kuznetsov said in an interview on Ukrainian ICTV.
The Dnipro is a single-use, three-staged launch vehicle based on the SS-18 intercontinental ballistic missile. The rocket, manufactured by the Yuzhnoe Design Bureau in Dnipropetrovsk, was named after the Dnieper River or the Dnipro in Ukranian.
Ukrainian launch vehicles are the foundation of the country's space potential. Of the 54 space launches worldwide last year, NSAU carried out seven, sending 15 spacecraft into orbit, Olexander Negoda, NSAU's director general, said earlier this year.
posted by Aussiegirl @ 11:10 PM
1 Comments:
I seem to remember that a good deal of the old Soviet space industry (at least a lot of the brainwork) was based in Ukraine. This is an exciting developement!
I am a great proponent of the Space program, and if Ukrainian launches compete with Nasa so much the better. I want to see the U.S. lead the way into the Solar Sytem, but if we fail to do it then someone else has to take up the mantle. Could it be that we see the emergence of a new space leader?
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