Ukraine’s Space Industry ‘Mostly All Gone Now’ Due to Conflict With Russia; Former Partners Didn’t Want To Take Risks [Report]

Ukraine and Russia's conflict started in February 2014. The latter took it to the next level when it invaded the former in February 2022. The war is ongoing and has badly affected the Ukrainian space sector.

Ukraine-Russia Conflict Affects Space Industry

The partnership with Northrop Grumman, which was so important to the Ukrainians because it allowed them access to the West, perished as a result of Russia's war on them, according to Volodymyr Usov, a space entrepreneur who was born in Ukraine and a former head of the nation's space agency.

One of the many hits Ukraine's powerful space sector has endured since Russian tanks first entered the country on Feb. 24, 2022, is the cancellation of the Antares project. Russian missiles have frequently targeted the massive Yuzhnoye State Design Office and Yuzhmash Machine Building rocket plant in Dnipro, where the Antares' first stages were assembled.

The Yuzhmash and Yuzhnoye factories produced about 100 launch vehicles annually before the war, including the country's own medium-lift Zenit rocket, which had previously been used to launch commercial payloads from the Kazakhstani Baikonur Cosmodrome, which was run by Russia, as well as from waterborne platforms used by the now-defunct international organization Sea Launch Alliance.

Additionally, the upper stages of the European Vega rocket's Vega C variant are produced by Yuzhmash and Yuzhnoye. However, Usov claims that, like Antares, that cooperation is also coming to an end.

Ukraine, which has been attempting to establish a space sector independent of its previous hegemon-turned-archenemy, Russia, will be harmed by the loss of these contracts. The Vega rocket's Italian manufacturer, Avio, has not yet declared whether or not it will stop utilizing Ukrainian upper-stage technology. Still, it has hinted that it might do so after Russia's invasion.

Usov opposes the idea even if he recognizes that Ukraine has unavoidably become a high-risk commercial partner. Although Ukraine receives much [military] assistance, Usov claimed that the country's space cooperation has mostly ended. It reportedly makes sense since its partners are aware that the war jeopardizes the technology, which impacts their clientele and timetables - a risk that nobody wants to take.

There have been multiple attacks on the [Yuzhnoye and Yuzhmash] factories. Dnipro is reportedly attacked almost every week, and Russians target critical infrastructure. Although there was significant damage, the factories are currently busy, focusing primarily on military and defense programs. The precise extent of the damage to these facilities is still unknown.

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Antares Space Rocket, Partly Designed in Ukraine, Launched in the US

The first stage of the Antares space rocket was created by Hartron-ARKOS (Kharkiv), Kyivprylad (Kyiv), Hartron-UCOM (Zaporizhzhya), Chezara and Rapid (Chernihiv), as well as other Ukrainian high-tech firms, in collaboration with the Ukrainian State Enterprises Pivdennyi Machine-Building Plant and Pivdenne Design Bureau. These businesses also contributed to the launch of the space rocket's preparations by a long-term deal that runs until 2018 with an American business called Orbital Sciences Corporation.

The United States provided funding for the initiative.

Cygnus, a cargo ship orbited by an Antares rocket, was scheduled to carry 1,600 kg of supplies to the International Space Station (ISS), including food, ISS repair parts, and research instruments for more than two dozen investigations. By the end 2016, seven more launches to transfer cargo to the ISS were anticipated.

Representatives of the Ukrainian Embassy in the United States, Ukrainian design firms, NASA and Orbital Sciences Corporation executives, and other project participants were present at the launch ceremony.

Another successful launch of the Antares demonstrated the dependability and superior quality of Ukrainian high-tech products and the continued advancement of favorable bilateral ties between the United States and Ukraine in the aerospace industry.