Ukraine's Defence Ministry has new space policy department
Ukraine's Defence Ministry has created a Space Policy Directorate to bring together public and private companies, as well as space scientists, to interact with the Ukrainian army.
Source: Kateryna Chernohorenko, Deputy Minister of Defence for Digitalisation at the Space For Ukraine forum, as reported by Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne
Quote: "We have a law on space activities, which states that the Ministry of Defence should formulate a policy in the field of military space. This is not only the purchase of innovative solutions from engineers, it is not only the creation of a community so that the best solutions come to Ukraine, but it is also the creation of space troops."
Details: Chernohorenko said that the defence ministry plans to become the main customer in Ukraine for space technology, products and services. And this office should bring together public and private institutions and space scientists to interact with Ukraine's defence forces.
"We want all the innovators, all the engineers who are thinking about how to develop space technologies to know the contacts, to understand the digital entry points, to interact with us [the Ministry of Defence - ed.]. The directorate is a coordination centre, a centre for generating meanings, a centre for generating policies," the official explained.
She added that by 2030, Ukraine plans to have national satellites for defence purposes, as well as an air-raid warning and space control system.
In January 2021, the Cabinet of Ministers approved the concept of the National Targeted Scientific and Technical Space Programme of Ukraine for 2021-2025. It envisaged the creation of up to two thousand new jobs in the space industry and the growth of scientific and technical personnel in this area.
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