The Ukrainian government has announced its strategy to develop the country’s astronomy and space technology in 2021–2025. The program will cost over $1 billion.
The program aims to “unlock Ukraine’s potential in space” and “act in the national interest in the fields of security and defense,” according to the explanatory note to the Cabinet of Ministers decree published on Jan. 13.
The strategy has been developed by the Ministry of Strategic Industries and the State Space Agency of Ukraine.
The government wants to attract more private capital to the space production industry, foster startup entrepreneurs to enter the sphere, improve the country’s legislature and encourage local enterprises to work more with international partners like NASA and European Space Agency.
The note also states that only half of $1 billion will be covered by the state funds. The decree doesn’t specify where the rest of the money will come from. The decree doesn’t mention any concrete steps either.
According to the Cabinet of Ministers, the country needs a strategy for the space industry because there’s none at the moment and because the government isn’t managing the industry effectively enough and offering no state contracts to the companies in this sphere.
The implementation of the program promises to provide Ukrainians with up to 2,000 new jobs in the space industry. The new developments in the space industry, according to the government, will help Ukraine’s military and economy among other sectors.
Agriculture firms, for example, can use satellite shots to improve how they work the land, while young Ukrainians may be more interested in the fields of science and technology if the country pays more attention to developing space technologies, the Cabinet of Ministers states.
Minister of Strategic Industries of Ukraine, Oleg Uruskyi, stated on Facebook that the program will unlock the country’s potential in the space industry.
“Finally, the (space) industry will get moving. It has actually been frozen over the past years with no priorities, no conditions to develop,” Uruskyi said. “Large and comprehensive work that should help the development of the space industry is underway.”
On Nov. 13, the country’s Space Agency also signed an agreement to join the NASA-led space exploration and colonization project, Artemis, becoming the ninth nation to join the international endeavor to get humans back to the Moon by 2024.
This has been one of Ukraine’s top priorities in the aerospace industry.
According to Volodymyr Usov, who chaired the national space agency in 2020, Ukrainian engineers are ready to contribute the program with a wide range of projects, such as a lunar industrial base project developed by Dnipro-based engineering bureau Pivdenne.
Despite having the loosely formulated space program approved, the country’s Space Agency hasn’t carried out a public competition to hire a new head yet. Previous head Usov was abruptly sacked on Nov. 16 by a request from minister Uruskiy, who later cited “unsatisfactory results” as the main reason behind the dismissal.
Usov, who later challenged the decision in court, accused Uruskiy of seeking to derail the agency reforms in order to keep old corrupt practices intact in the industry.
