Space
Ukraine
Space agency/agencies
The State Space Agency of Ukraine (SSAU), originally established in 1992 as the National Space Agency of Ukraine (NSAU), underwent a name change in 2010 (2025)
Space program overview
Upon gaining independence in 1991, Ukraine took over a substantial and advanced space program, including the entirety of the former Soviet defense and space industry located within its borders; the contemporary program encompasses the creation of satellite/space launch vehicles (SLVs), rocket carriers, satellites, and associated components. Before the Russian invasion in 2022, Ukraine was manufacturing over 100 SLVs, SLV stages, or SLV engines each year; it has collaborated with a variety of international space agencies and industries, including those from Brazil, Canada, China, Japan, Kazakhstan, and Turkey, as well as the US, the European Space Agency (ESA), the European Union (EU), and several of their member states, particularly Italy and Poland; the nation hosts around 20 state-operated space industries. In 2019, the Ukrainian Parliament began permitting private enterprises to participate in space-related activities (2025)
Key space-program milestones
1995 - The inaugural domestically produced remote sensing (RS) satellite (Sich-1) was launched aboard the Ukrainian Tsyklon-3 rocket
1997 - The first Ukrainian astronaut traveled to space on a US Space Shuttle
1999 - The initial launch of Dnipro-1, a domestically manufactured satellite launch vehicle (SLV)
2008 - The first launch of Zenit-3SLB, a homegrown SLV
2014 - The first domestically produced microsatellite (PolyITAN-1) was launched
2020 - Ukraine signed the US-led Artemis Accords for space and lunar exploration
2021 - The first successful launch of a joint Ukrainian-US commercial light SLV (Alpha)
2022 - A domestically produced RS microsatellite (Sich 2-30) was launched by the US
2024 - The first Ukrainian woman traveled to suborbital space on a US commercial spacecraft