The Head of Roscosmos visited Russia's first Summer Space School for students from Africa at MAI

On August 20, Yury Borisov, Director General of the Roscosmos State Corporation, met with students of the General Aerospace Course International Summer School. Mikhail Pogosyan, Rector of Moscow Aviation Institute, and Ilya Tarasenko, Head of JSC “Glavkosmos” also attended the event.

There are18 space industry specialists from four African countries: South Africa, Angola, Mali and Zimbabwe participating at the educational program, which is carried out at MAI from August 12 to 23. During the first week, foreign specialists mastered the basics of project management of space programs and immersed into service design on the example of small spacecraft. In addition, the students took theoretical and practical courses on the formation of personnel support for their companies.

During the meeting, Yury Borisov spoke about the international programs of Roscosmos and reminded the audience about the imminent launch of the first module of the Russian orbital station. He noted that the Russian party is open to cooperation with representatives of African states in this area as well.

“Today, space is becoming practical, and there is an explosive growth in space services for various purposes. Actually, this attracts the interest of all countries. We are ready to work with all friendly countries in terms of propulsion, launch vehicles, design and transfer of launch services competencies. Today we are at the moment of transition to a new industry. We invite you to walk this path with us,” Yury Borisov said, addressing his colleagues.

Summing up the interim results of the MAI course, the representative of the Ministry of Defense of South Africa, General Barends Andre Russell stressed that he hopes for fruitful cooperation with the Russian party in the space sector. During the meeting, he and his colleagues presented their projects that they would like to develop jointly.

Yury Borisov thanked the representatives of African countries for their great attention to Russian space. He noted that Russia is already actively cooperating with African states in various areas of the space industry. In particular, this applies to projects for the introduction and implementation of launch services, the development and launch of satellites. The next stage is active participation in joint manned programs. The experts of Moscow Aviation Institute will help to achieve the goals, because they know exactly the needs of the market in this area.

“I must stress that the interest in space services from developing African countries is not a myth, it is quite obvious. We always meet halfway in the organization of joint work. At the same time, I would like to note that we are interested not only in providing services, but also, in particular, in teaching space technologies. All this lays a serious foundation for deep long-term relations,” concluded the CEO of Roscosmos.