On July 18, Samara hosted the conference “Prospects and Opportunities for Private Astronautics Development in Russia” organized by the managing company of the world-class research and Educational Center “Engineering of the Future” together with Lomonosov Moscow State University, Roscosmos State Corporation and NTI Aeronet. The plenary session of the conference was attended by Dmitry Azarov, Governor of the Samara region, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the research and Educational Center “Engineering of the Future”.

Representatives of Roscosmos State Corporation, private astronautics companies from Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan, as well as representatives of the largest enterprises, design bureaus and universities of the country are working at the conference, which will last until July 20. Samara National Research University where the Commercial Space Centre and the Single Distributed Production and Testing Ground have been established is one of the key participants.

Expert sessions are devoted to the trends of astronautics development in modern conditions, the potential of the space services market, interaction between the state and private companies in this sphere, and legal conditions of private astronautics development in Russia.

Dmitry Azarov thanked the co-organizers of the conference – Moscow State University and Roscosmos State Corporation – for holding it in Samara. “Given the number of experts the conference has gathered, I realize that this topic is important,” said the head of the region. As the Governor reminded, the relevance of the conference’s theme was emphasized at the meeting between the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin and the head of Roscosmos Yuri Borisov. “This discussion and initiatives of Roscosmos are not only food for thought, but also a guide to action,” believes Dmitry Azarov. “At the forum ‘Strong Ideas for New Times’ organized by the Agency for Strategic Initiatives, the low-orbit space project gained special attention of Vladimir Vladimirovich among the best projects presented to the President.”

Dmitry Azarov said that one of the goals of the conference was development of recommendations and requests for the authorities on the part of the scientific community. It is necessary to determine what efforts are needed at the regional and federal levels and what initiatives should be taken to embodythe ideas offered at the conference and make investors prefer Russian astronautics to foreign projects.

According to the head of the region, there are more opportunities for the industry now. “Remember how many times the President has told big business and financial industry groups to invest in Russia. If you invest somewhere else, you will get tired of swallowing dust to get your capital back,” reminded Dmitry Azarov. “And in Samara region, we are already feeling the attention. Large companies are turning their gaze from the West to the East and are now looking for various projects in Russian regions. In my opinion, it provides opportunities for investment.”

According to Alexander Bloshenko, Executive Director for Advanced Programs and Science at Roscosmos State Corporation, Samara Region has become a recognized centre of attraction, a centre of excellence in competencies. “The fact that universities from completely other constituent territories have joined your region shows that you have become a leader in the country in this area,” the expert said. He cited an example of such pooling of competencies with Samara University on the part of Baltic State Technical University Voenmeh named after D. F. Ustinov (St. Petersburg) and Lomonosov Moscow State University. Alexander Bloshenko thanked Dmitry Azarov for his work in this direction. One of his suggestions was to find the possibilities of using the infrastructure of the universities that are part of the REC to solve the problems of manufacturing companies in the industry. This will allow private companies to develop efficiently, primarily economically.

“For example, Samara’s Progress, OJSC is deeply embedded in Samara University, they have aligned all scientific and educational programs, personnel training, and have joint stands at the exhibitions. In this case, research can be effectively incorporated into the learning process not on some ephemeral tasks, but on those that come from outside. Accordingly, it does not always make sense for private companies to hire staff, for example, ballistics specialists, if the targeting problems can be effectively solved by the university,” the expert said.

“The needs that companies have today in terms of testing or using an infrastructure – whether computing equipment or labs – definitely require this to be done. And if now some opportunities are missing, it means that we will create them together with Roscosmos, with backbone enterprises, and we will discuss them with the industry’s responsible Ministry. We need to develop intra-corporate solutions as well. I think it would be an important practical result of our conference,” the head of the region agreed.

Dmitry Azarov emphasized the role of REC in this work: “The REC aims at connecting science, production and education. In many ways, REC is the organizer of this collaboration, the joint activities of universities and industrial partners. Today we help universities fine-tune their developments to solve applied tasks. The efforts of REC lead to certain results in different areas, but more efforts are needed in space topics.”

As a reminder, within the framework of the agreement concluded between the region’s government and Roscosmos State Corporation, REC Engineering of the Future is implementing a project to create a centre to support the development of private astronautics. The centre is designed to become a one-stop shop to help private companies get timely support for testing, trials, expertise, permitting documentation for production and operation of their developments.

Piotr Vityaz, Head of the Department of Aerospace Activities of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, Deputy Head of the Space Research Agency, emphasized the good prospects of partnership between the NAS of Belarus and REC Engineering of the Future. The NAS of Belarus and Roscosmos have implemented 20 joint programs, 7 of them on space. In addition, he drew attention to the issue of creating uniform standards: “If engineers can’t agree on a technical language, it’s impossible to create something together. So, we implemented a standards program as part of one of our programs. Sixty-eight new legislative documents, standards, GOSTs, normative documents have been created for specialists to be able to speak the same language.”

Dmitry Azarov reminded about the implemented application solution – an integrated remote monitoring system which is already being replicated in other regions. “This is a system that is already working in the Samara region. Thanks to this system, today we monitor agricultural land and can predict the harvest and discover the current problems. We monitor forests, first of all in terms of fire safety, and the environmental situation, including the emergence of unauthorized dumps,” said the head of the region.

Oleg Mansurov, General Director of SR SPACE, JSC, drew attention to the issue of staffing of private companies of the industry and outlined some areas of possible cooperation. The company is a manufacturer of ultra-light launch vehicles, small spacecraft and satellite constellations; one of its specialties is data processing, which can help improve existing object recognition software solutions. The governor expressed the region’s interest in cooperating with the company in this area.