MOSCOW, Jan. 24 (UPI) -- Second of two parts
A measure of disunity between the Russian and Ukrainian space industries could not be avoided. Sudden independence at the beginning of 1992 upset years of production cooperation between the plants, which found themselves on the opposite sides of the border.
Experts believe that the curtailment and freezing of joint projects is costing the Ukrainian side tens of millions of dollars annually. There is now little if any demand for products made in Ukraine. There are also financial problems with government orders. In other words, the only past source of financing is gone.
It would be wrong, however, to say that the Ukrainian leadership has not tried to improve things. It drew up and implemented several national space programs. The optimal sharing of even meager funds has helped most of the industry survive. This came about thanks to the direct support given to the Ukrainian space industry by a former Ukrainian president, Leonid Kuchma, through personal arrangements with Russian President Vladimir Putin, including liberalization of customs rules for counter-trade deliveries by space equipment manufacturers.
But bad practices are pervasive, and so are the views supporting them. Following the Orange Revolution, the new Ukrainian leadership promoted "European values" not only in politics but also in economics. This fate also befell the space industry, which was told to seek cooperation with Western companies.
The issue, however, is not what Ukraine wants to get from cooperation with the Western powers, but what it can give them. And it has nothing to give: Ukraine, unlike China or India, lacks a full-fledged space industry, and the emergence of one in the next few years is unrealistic because there are just no resources for it. Ukraine is in a position to pursue a more or less credible space effort only in cooperation with Russia. Some progress has already been reported.
In the summer of 2006, Anatoly Perminov, the head of Russia's Federal Space Agency, or Roskosmos, and Yury Alekseyev, the general director of the National Space Agency of Ukraine, or NKAU, signed an agreement on Russian-Ukrainian cooperation in the exploration and utilization of space in 2007-2011. It provides for the modernization of launch facilities, rendering launch services, conducting fundamental and applied space research, and much else. Ukraine is a participant in the Russian Koronas-Photon project, which wants to find links between solar activity and physical and chemical processes in the Earth's upper atmosphere.
A number of Ukrainian plants are developing instruments and ground equipment for Russian astrophysical observatories of the Spektr series. One of the projects is to upgrade the RT-70 antenna in Evpatoria. Close cooperation is expected in the early forecasting of earthquakes from space. The Ukrainian program, "Ionosats," is intended to study the ionosphere's responses to all kinds of seismic effects. In its philosophy it is close to the Russian Kampas, Vulkan and Arina projects.
Another advantageous area of cooperation is the Chibis automatic micro-satellite platform and experiments aboard the International Space Station, or more precisely, on its Russian segment. Serious efforts in this direction were started back in 1999-2000 and continue to this day. In recent years Russia has come to play a markedly greater role in the ISS project and this will affect the extent of Ukrainian participation in the station's activities. It is not unlikely that a Ukrainian cosmonaut researcher will carry out joint experiments on the station. Oleg Fyodorov, head of space programs at NKAU, said that although Ukraine has no cosmonaut team of its own, it has young scientists who in the late 1990s were screened and participated in an American shuttle flight, and are ready to go aloft again.
Russian-Ukrainian space cooperation could gain a lot from Ukraine joining the common economic space. The pluses are obvious for both countries and the move would not infringe on the sovereignty of either Ukraine or Russia. Nevertheless, so far the Ukrainian leadership is still considering the question, wanting to make "carefully weighed decisions."
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(Yury Zaitsev is an analyst with the Russian Academy of Sciences' Space Research Institute. This article is reprinted by permission of the RIA Novosti news agency. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and may not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.)
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(United Press International's "Outside View" commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of important issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.)
