Acronym | SSAU |
---|---|
Established | February 1992 (as National Space Agency of Ukraine) |
Headquarters | Kyiv |
Primary spaceport | under lease |
Administrator | Yurii Radchenko |
Budget | $250–300 million |
Website | www |
The State Space Agency of Ukraine (SSAU; Ukrainian: Державне космічне агентство України, Derzhavne kosmichne ahentstvo Ukrayiny, ДКАУ, DKAU) is the Ukrainian government agency responsible for space policy and programs. Along with the Ukrainian Defense Industry and the Antonov Aeronautical Scientific-Technical Complex, it is a major state complex of the national defense industry of Ukraine. The State Space Agency of Ukraine does not specialize in manned astronautical programs. It is the second of two direct Soviet space program descendants. The agency does not have its own spaceport and is often dependent on the resources of the Russian Federal Space Agency (the primary inheritor of the Soviet space program).
Until December 9, 2010, the agency was known as Національне космічне агентство України, НКАУ, the National Space Agency of Ukraine (NSAU)
Until 2014 Launches were conducted at Kazakhstan's Baikonur and Russia's Plesetsk Cosmodromes. Since the Crimean crisis, launches are conducted on Sea Launch's floating platform. NSAU has ground control and tracking facilities in Kiev with the other facilities in Yevpatoria, Crimea, and the control-measuring complexes in Yevpatoria were abandoned, while they are operating the control center in Dunaivtsi (Khmelnytskyi Oblast).