The American company of Elon Musk SpaceX is ready to launch Ukrainian satellite Sich 2-1, which is being developed at the Yuzhnoye State Design Office, into orbit. The construction of the satellite itself is not yet completed.
According to the Head of the Parliamentary Committee for Economic Development Dmitry Natalukha, the cost of launching will amount to $1 million, which is «a very good price for Ukraine».
The contract has already been agreed upon with SpaceX
As Natalukha noted, negotiations with SpaceX lasted three months, beginning in December 2020. They were led by the Committee for Economic Development, State Space Agency of Ukraine (SSAU) and the ex-Head of SSAU Mikhail Lev. As a result of negotiations, SpaceX confirmed the launch of Ukrainian satellite for $1 million.
«We can now say that the terms have previously been agreed upon and Ukraine has an opportunity to sign a launch services contract with the legendary American company. The contract price is $1 million, which is an extremely good price for Ukraine, and it is eight times lower than the one that was planned from the very beginning,» Dmitry Natalukha wrote.
According to Natalukha, the general contractor Yuzhnoye Design Office may sign the contract by the end of this week.
Yevgeny Rokitsky, the Assistant of the Head of the Committee for Economic Development, said that SpaceX had confirmed the possibility of launching the Sich 2-1 satellite in December 2021, RBC Ukraine reported.
About the Sich 2-1 satellite
The Sich 2-30 (2-1) satellite is being developed at the Yuzhnoye State Design Office. It is a modification of another Sich 2 satellite, constructed by the Office, that operated in a sun-synchronous orbit from August 2011 to December 2012. Then, as a result of a failure of the chemical power supply subsystem battery, it was lost.
The satellite is designed to capture visible and near-infrared images of the surface of the Earth, as well as to monitor the planet’s magnetic field.
Sich 2-1 became the subject on February 1, 2021. Vice Prime Minister for Strategic Industries Oleg Urusky wrote that President Volodymyr Zelensky instructed to put a remote sensing satellite into orbit. On February, 12, Urusky in an interview with Pervy Delovoy said that the spacecraft is almost ready and requires only an in-service check.Significantly, a year earlier, in March 2020, the Deputy Head of the Parliamentary Committee for Economic Development Dmitry Kisilevsky already reported that the satellite had been constructed and that the Dnipropetrovsk region plans to allocate $1 million for its launch.
