KYIV. Feb 11 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Ukraine has state-of-the-art rocket technologies, and Poland shows a serious interest to cooperation in their joint gradual promotion to the EU market, President of the Polish Space Agency (POLSA) Marek Banaszkiewicz has told Interfax-Ukraine.
“I think that there is a very large potential for promotion of rocket technologies that are well developed in Ukraine to the EU space market. This would be not an easy task: as you know, there is a mature market in Europe with companies that define the competitive positioning on the market,” he said after a first meeting of the ad hoc working group for space of the Ukrainian-Polish interagency commission for economic cooperation held in Kyiv and Dnipropetrovsk on February 8-10.
Banaszkiewicz said that today Ukraine “has access to the market that operates and develops on the verge of competition and cooperation and could take part in the competitive fight on it.”
“I think that first there is sense to develop cooperation in the area that are open for partnership,” he said, adding that one of the projects where Ukrainian rocket technologies could be of great demand is the Ariane 6 new-generation launcher program being implemented in the EU.
Among promising areas for bilateral partnership is the creation of new rockets, Banaszkiewicz said. One of the projects could be the project on the creation of a new European light launcher proposed for joint realization by the Polish Aviation Institute and Pivdenne Design Bureau (Dnipropetrovsk).
“No European country has offered the similar product to the market,” he added.
He said that one should not forget about possibilities of developing cooperation in the satellite area and creation of the Earth remote sensing systems.
“We should think of additional options for cooperation as part of the operation of our working group at the intergovernmental commission and move step by step,” he said.
Banaszkiewicz said that at present, the Polish government shows the interest to the development of space solutions, and first solutions in the interests of the security and defense sector as part of the future development of Polish industry.
Assessing the investment attractiveness of Pivdenne Design Bureau and Pivdenmash state enterprise that are being prepared for reformation, he expressed confidence that the two enterprises are interesting for investors.
The POLSA head said that these enterprises have a large number of skilled specialists.
“This is an excellent base for competitive fight with Arianespace,” he said.
