The round-table meetings were held at the sessions “Materials and Technologies” and “Lunar Industrial Research Base” within the 6th International Conference “Space Technologies: Present and Future” on 25 and 26 May.

Alexander Potapov, Head of New Materials and Advanced Technologies, was a moderator of two round-table meetings within the session “Materials and Technologies”. Sixty leading experts took part in the meeting: 32 of them were employees of Yuzhnoye SDO, and the others were representatives of Oles Honchar Dnipro National University, Institute of Elastomer Materials and Products, Institute for Problems in Materials Science.

The topic of the first round-table meetings was Creation and adoption of the new class of reinforced composite materials at the aerospace industry enterprises. The participants listened closely to the lecture by Petro Loboda, Dean of the Faculty of Physical Engineering of National Technical University of Ukraine “Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute”. He presented the achievements in creating composite materials that operate in extreme conditions.

The discussion covered the following issues: study of new materials’ properties and their wear resistance, new approaches to ceramic materials, etc.

At the end of the meeting, it was offered to create a joint working group to develop a project of government program for import substitution and prepare guiding documents for using new materials in military hardware and space rocketry.

The topic of the first round-table meetings was Functional approach to process technologies development. The main speakers were representatives of Mykhaylo Ostrohradskyi Kremenchuk National University: Alexander Salenko, Head of the Machine Tools and Machine Complexes Department, and professor Victor Shchetinin. The other participants of the round-table discussion were leading experts from Yuzhnoye SDO, Institute for Problems in Materials Science, and NASU Institute of Technical Mechanics.

The speakers overviewed the dimensional processing of products made of composite materials. This topic is interesting for contemporary high-technology production. Traditional methods of workpiece processing were also underlined. The speakers also presented the peculiarities of functional cost approach to processing technology adoption for composite workpiece made of extra-hard layered materials.

The issues of the item processing optimization were discussed.

At the end of both round-table meetings, it was observed that the leading scientific organizations of Ukraine have the substantial scientific and engineering potential to develop and adopt new materials and technologies for manufacturing the space rocketry products. The ways of future cooperation were outlined. 

The round-table meeting “Creation of Lunar Base. Main steps and realization aspects” was held within the program of the Conference’s final day on 26 May. Fourteen scientists from five countries participated in lectures and presentations. The round-table meeting moderators were Alexander Kushnar’ov, Yuzhnoye SDO First Deputy General Designer – General Director for System Design, and Oleg Fedorov, Director of Space Research Institute of National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. The other participants were Alexander Kashanov, Deputy General Designer for Research and Academic Activities, Yaroslav Yatskiv, Member of Presidium of National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Arthur Dula, Robert and Virginia Heinlein Prize Trust Trustee, Oleg Ventskovsky, Head of European Representative Office of Yuzhnoye SDO, Anatoly Alpatov, Head of Department of System Analysis and Control Problems of Institute of Technical Mechanics of NASU, Li Ping, Director of Xi’an Aerospace Propulsion Institute (China), Gennady Osinovy, Head of Design Department of Special Rocket and Space Systems of Yuzhnoye SDO, Anatoly Zak, space observer, journalist, publisher of RussianSpaceWeb.com (USA), Valentine Volkov, research officer of Paton Electric Welding Institute of National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.

The round-table meeting took place in the Yuzhnoye SDO assembly hall that was transformed specially for the event so that it seated the lecturers, more than one hundred experts and scientists from many national and foreign organizations, and members of the media.

The people present at the meeting listened to the lectures on the issues of lunar base creation that were delivered by Gennady Osinovy, Valentine Volkov, Oleg Ventskovsky, Anatoly Zak, and the others. The following questions were covered: future cooperation, data exchange, usage of engines and landing module developed by Yuzhnoye SDO, and creation of new ISS in the lunar orbit. Great attention was paid to financial and organizational aspects of the discussed topic.

The following issues were discussed in connection with lunar base creation:

  • Project of lunar base creation – is it a logical continuation of the International Space Station project?
  • Creation of Lunar Industrial Research Base – is it entirely robotized or partly human-aided?
  • Lunar base – is it an industrial research base or just a research base?
  • Lunar base – is it in the surface or under lunar ground?
  • Organizational   aspects of international cooperation.

The round-table meeting confirmed that scientists and experts from Ukrainian and international organizations and companies are interested in creation of a lunar base; and the international cooperation and effort coordination are reasonable. The round-table meetings on lunar base creation are planned to be continued in the future.