The Ukraine-made Antares rocket used by Northrop Grumman has successfully launched cargo to the International Space Station (ISS). Photos/Spaces
KIEV – War with Russia caused the collapse of the Ukrainian space industry and the cessation of a number of cooperation with other countries. One of them is the Antares rocket project which was halted due to the Russia-Ukraine war which started on February 24, 2022.
Whereas rocket Northrop Grumman’s Antares successfully launched cargo to the International Space Station (ISS) on August 1. It is known that the first stage of the Antares rocket was assembled in the city of Dnipro, central Ukraine.
The flight was the last for this type of Antares, the 230 series, which contained Ukrainian components as well as Russian engines. Ukraine’s collaboration with Northrop Grumman was ruined by the war with Russia.
The Yuzhnoye State Design Office and the Yuzhmash Engine Building rocket factory on Dnipro, where the first stage of Antares was assembled, have been repeatedly targeted by Russian missiles. The exact scale of the damage to these facilities is unknown.
The factories are targeted by Russian missiles because they have largely turned to building military technology. “Dnipro is attacked almost every week, and (Russia) is targeting critical infrastructure,” Volodymyr Usov, former head of the Ukrainian Space Agency told Space.com, Monday (28/8/2023).
Before the war, the Yuzhmash and Yuzhnoye plants used to produce around 100 launch vehicles per year, including Ukraine’s medium-lift Zenit rocket. In the past Zenit rockets were used to launch commercial payloads from the Russian-run Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Zenit rockets were also operated by the now defunct international company Sea Launch Alliance. Yuzhmash and Yuzhnoye also produce the top stage of the European light Vega rocket and its Vega C version.
2023-08-28 15:31:32
#Ukraines #space #industry #destroyed #long #war #Russia
