• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Kazakhstan Offers Space Cooperation With Russia, Ukraine

Posted on: Sunday, 31 July 2005, 15:00 CDT

Kazakhstan has embarked on developing its own space programme in cooperation with Ukraine and Russia, Kazakh newspaper Izvestiya- Kazakhstan has reported. Kazakh Education and Science Minister Byrganym Aytimova briefed a recent government meeting about what is being done in cooperation with Russia's leading organizations involved in national space exploration programme. The following is the text of report entitled "Ukraine is ready to go to outer space with us" published in Izvestiya-Kazakhstan on 19 July; subheadings inserted editorially:

Kazakhstan is ready to cooperate in the space sector not only with one of the world's leading space powers - Russia - but virtually with all countries which are interesting from the point of view of science and business space projects. This idea has been voiced more than once by those attending a government meeting on the development Kazakhstan's space sector.

Ukraine's space cooperation proposals

Specifically, that meeting heard information by the director- general of the Yuzhnoye [Pivdenne] state design bureau, Oleksandr Degtyarev, with proposals to cooperate in space exploration programmes. Incidentally, this time the Ukrainian side was not very much independent on Russia: In his report Degtyarev put the main emphasis on "stepping up joint efforts and uniting the opportunities of Kazakhstan, Ukraine and the Russian Federation in the area of space", which, as he assesses, will enable them "to not only successfully implement national space programmes, but also take a dignified place in multilateral international space projects".

If one is to speak specifically about Ukraine's possible participation in space projects, then, in the opinion of the Yuzhnoye state design bureau, it might be involved in using the Baykonur space launch site for launching Zenit booster-rockets of various modifications, creating the Clipper space shuttle, launching small space vehicles and in a number of other areas. A working group set up on the instructions of the Kazakh prime minister [Daniyal Akhmetov] will study these proposals in detail.

Kazakhstan's space progress

It is noteworthy that our country's cooperation with other powers in the space sector is developing successfully so far, as was said in a report made by Education and Science Minister Byrganym Aytimova. Specifically, considerable work has been done in Kazakhstan on legal regulation of issues related to the implementation of space projects: by decisions of the government, the Bayterek joint venture and the Kazkosmos national company were set up. On the part of Kazakhstan, all issues of financing the project on setting up the Bayterek space rocket complex has been solved; the process of creating another space project on developing and launching Kazakhstan's KazSat communications and broadcasting satellite has made progress.

By 1 July this year, the [Moscow-based] Khrunichev state space research and development centre, the subcontractor of the project, had done work worth about 44.2m dollars, which is 68 per cent of the total cost of the contract for creating and launching the satellite to geostationary orbit. Apart from that, the equipment of concomitant land complex for controlling space vehicles and communications monitoring system is being assembled.

Another project which is being implemented as part of the national space programme is the creation of the Ishim aviation rocket and space complex. Its implementation will enable the country to take small civilian satellites to low near-earth orbits. Talks have already been held with leading foreign centers which specialize in developing and launching small space vehicles.

Training space personnel

The issue of training Kazakh personnel in the space sector is also being solved: the minister of education and science says talks are now being held with Russia's [Roskosmos] federal space agency on training specialists for the design and technology bureau of the Kazkosmos national company. An agreement has been reached on retraining 50 Kazakh specialists in leading Russian organizations in the space sector - at the Bauman Higher Technical School in Moscow, the Moscow Aviation Institute, the Khrunichev space research and development centre and the Reshetnikov Scientific-Production Association of Applied Mechanics. There is also an agreement that two Kazakh cosmonauts who are now undergoing training in Russia will continue education on a special programme at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre.

Source: BBC Monitoring Central Asia

More News in this Category