On Saturday, October 11, Nikolay Merkushkin, Head of Region held a working meeting with Aleksandr Kirilin, Director General of the Rocket Space Centre “Progress” and Evgeniy Shakhmatov, Rector of SSAU. Implementation of the project on construction of the space-launch complex “Vostochniy” became one of the topics of discussion.

Currently it is one of the most ambitious construction projects in the country. The project involves more than 7 thousand workers and students from 15 regions of Russia.

Opening of the space-launch complex is scheduled for summer 2015, and in December the first carrier rocket must be launched from it. It will be “Soyuz-2.1a” equipped with upper stage “Volga” and created by the Rocket Space Centre “Progress”. Small spacecraft “Aist-2” and nanosatellite SamSat-218, developed by young scientists- students of Samara Aerospace University, will be part of the rocket payload.

Nikolay Merkushkin concerned himself with the progress of the project work.
“We meet the deadline as a company responsible for the production of the carrier rocket and upper stage. Now the matter depends on the builders - they have to complete all works on time, so that we will have time to accommodate technological equipment and start preparing for the launch”, - reported Aleksandr Kirilin to the Governor.

According to Kirilin, in the nearest future thermal envelope will be circuited at the technical and space-launch complex and then interior decoration will begin.

Head of the Region called the project participants to strengthen their work.
“In September, the space-launch complex was visited by Vladimir Putin, the President of the Russian Federation. He clearly stated that the launching should be performed in 2015. It is evidence that this is a project of a huge importance for the country. We must make every effort to fulfil the tasks set” - said the Governor.  

SSAU students have made their contribution to the construction of “Vostochniy”. It is to be recalled that 10 people from the group “Legion” took part in the All-Russian student construction project of the space-launch complex in July and August. The students themselves admitted that they will remember this time forever.

“In September I met with the participants of the construction team. The guys said that in these two months they have grown up just by understanding what a grand event they are involved in. Taking into account the scale of construction work, the students help was very useful”, - said Evgeniy Shakhmatov.

According to the Rector, the guys dream of returning to the site of the space-launch complex: “The students offered to form a team of 30 people to give more active assistance to the builders next year”.

Members of the meeting paid special attention to the prospects of further development of SSAU. It is to be recalled that in May last year, the university was among the top 15 universities in the country and now it is fighting for getting into the top 100 universities in the world. To this effect the University has developed an extensive roadmap which activities will be implemented until 2020.

“I shall report on the first phase of work on the roadmap at the Council on competitiveness improvement in St. Petersburg in October. I hope everything is going to be good - the tasks we set for ourselves this year are made by 100%”, - said the Rector.

In addition, Nikolay Merkushkin heard a number of proposals on development of the Supervisory Board of the University. It will be remembered that in September it was headed by Dmitry Rogozin, Deputy Prime Minister of the Government of the Russian Federation. In the nearest future a new Board will hold its first meeting. According to Shakhmatov, it will present the program of the institution development and some documents will be approved there.