April 12, 2024, 00:30
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Every year on April 12, Ukraine celebrates the Day of Workers of the Rocket and Space Industry of Ukraine. It is also called Cosmonautics Day.
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history of the holiday
This holiday was established in Ukraine according to the decree of the President of Ukraine dated March 13, 1997. It was introduced “…taking into account the significant contribution of workers in the rocket and space industry of Ukraine to scientific research, the creation of modern rocket and space technology and the introduction of high space technologies into the national economy…”
April 12 is also International Human Space Flight Day. The decision to celebrate was made by the UN General Assembly in 2011 and is dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the first space flight.
Ukrainian scientists made a huge contribution to the development of Soviet cosmonautics, which allowed the USSR to be a leading space state. Numerous Ukrainian scientific institutions, design bureaus, and industrial enterprises were involved in many of the most important space victories of the USSR – from the first flights into space to the creation and launch of the Energia-Buran space rocket complex.
Ukrainian designers Sergei Korolev and Valentin Glushko laid the foundations of Soviet cosmonautics; without them, human space flight would have been simply impossible.
Despite the fact that the industry has remained virtually unchanged over the past 30 years, Ukraine can still boast of some achievements.
Thus, during the period from 1991 to 2020, 138 launch vehicles were launched.
Since 2018, Ukraine has been involved in the European Copernicus Earth remote sensing program, which provides mutual access to data from the Sentinel series satellites and the promising Sich-2-1 and Sich-2M. Ukraine also joined the Artemis lunar exploration mission.
Last year, the School Space Experiment Program (SSEP) sent a mini-lab of student members of the Ukrainian Minor Academy of Sciences atop a Falcon 9 rocket to the International Space Station on a SpaceX Dragon.
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