Ukraine’s once-glorious aerospace industry is suffering from a decades-long crisis. But it refuses to give up without a fight.
Now, it has taken another step to keep up with humanity’s growing quest to explore the cosmos.
Ukraine’s State Space Agency has officially joined the Moon Village Association, an international project advocating lunar exploration and colonization, it announced on Aug. 3.
According to the agency, Ukrainian engineers already have something to offer Moon Village: Earlier, during the association’s summit in Tokyo, the Dnipro-based Pivdenne (Yuzhnoye) design bureau presented its concept project of a lunar industrial and exploration base operating a transport system for personnel and cargo.
“Joining the Moon Village Association means not just access to an international database of Moon exploration, but also a chance to play a part in advanced space projects,” said Volodymyr Usov, head of the State Space Agency.
“Humankind’s next step is not the conquest of Mars, but building capabilities to support life in space. If we don’t learn how to do this on a lunar orbital station, we are not going to make this happen on Mars, Jupiter’s moons or wherever else.”
Since taking office in February, Usov has declared joining global Moon exploration endeavors as one of his foremost priorities. In his April interview with the Kyiv Post, the official confirmed that Ukraine intends to join NASA’s $35-billion program Artemis, which plans to return humans to the Moon in 2024 and establish the first inhabited lunar base after 2028.
A view of the Mare Smythii Region of the Moon with Earth on the horizon.Usov said Ukraine’s space industry expects to contribute to the program by proposing a lunar industrial base design, as well as technological concepts for lunar orbital stations and transport communications between the Moon’s surface, orbital stations and the Earth.
The Moon Village Association was created in 2017 and is based in Vienna, Austria.
It presents itself as an international non-government organization that unites over 200 members from 39 nations — mostly government agencies, businesses and academia — in a bid to promote and support existing and planned Moon exploration projects, both public and private.
The organization says that the concept of Moon Village does not mean a literal human base on the lunar surface, but rather a global community of space industries developing advanced technologies that would eventually lead to sustainable and profitable colonization of the Moon, as well as to technological breakthroughs on the Earth.
“A basic feature of the Moon Village is the principle of broad international cooperation,” the association says on its website.
“Through this, it can catalyze government, scientific research, education, and industry activities globally, stimulating a virtuous cycle of economic development by all and for all, which represents a key factor for the peaceful future of humankind.”
