Ukraine to partner up with U.S. in Antares space launch

Wednesday, July 6, 2016 - 14:40 (EEST) Section: Latest news

Ambassador of Ukraine to the United States Valeriy Chaly said that Ukraine and the U.S. plan to jointly launch the space rocket Antares.
”We plan to launch the rocket together with the U.S in the coming months”, the diplomat said, Ukraine Today reported citing the Ukrainian media.
Chaly says Ukraine is among the world`s top ten countries in space industry due to cooperation with the U.S. According to Chaly, since 2008 until recently, Kyiv has not held joint meetings with the U.S. officials to negotiate space cooperation.
”I hope it [the launch] will not be sensational”, Chaly adds. Earlier Chaly said that Ukraine was ready to deepen cooperation with the U.S. in the military-industrial sector to jointly produce lethal weapons.
The Antares project was started in 2013. Ukraine manufactures the basic structure of the first stage for the rocket, designed to deliver cargo to the International Space Station (ISS) from Wallops Flight Facility (US). Five test launches were performed so far, four of them were successful.
In 2014, the rocket accident occurred due to a failure in the engine AJ-26 (Aerojet Rocketdyne, United States). Ukrainian engineers had to change the first stage of the rocket so that it could work with completely different engine. This is the RD-181 engine produced in Russia.
”Actively developing international cooperation in space exploration, Ukraine works with the US company Orbital ATK on the Antares project. The launch tests of the upgraded rocket ended in June, all systems and components of the first stage (made by Ukraine) worked smoothly (with no complains). The initial launch of the upgraded rocket is scheduled for August 2016 ”, the press service quoted the chairman of the National Space Agency of Ukraine (GKAU) Lubomir Szabados.