The year of 2021 has been declared the Year of Science and Technology in Russia. The theme of the new month is "Space Exploration", and a big cycle of events will be devoted to the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Yuri Gagarin's flight into space. Thematic events are being held both at the regional and at the federal levels. Cultural, scientific, and educational institutions are sharing information about what role was played and is still played by Russian scientists, engineers, and cosmonauts in space exploration. SUSU is among the leading universities offering training for the future engineers, rocket-and-missile engineers, and cosmonauts.
Rich history and brilliant future
The Faculty of Aerospace Engineering is one of the oldest faculties of South Ural State University; it has been operating since the fifties of the last century. Over that period of time, thousands of specialists have graduated from this university and have worked at space, defence and industrial enterprises for the good of their country. The faculty was created primarily to staff the Academician V.P. Makeyev State Rocket Centre, Zlatoust Machine-Building Plant and a number of other enterprises of the Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk regions.
At present, the faculty releases specialists in design, production and operation of rocket and space complexes, design of aircraft and rocket engines, and production and testing of ammunition and fuses. Bachelor’s degree students are trained in the fields of Rocket Complexes and Cosmonautics, Applied Mechanics. There is a Master's degree programme in Rocket Complexes and Cosmonautics, and Applied Mechanics. Postgraduate programmes train highly qualified personnel in the field of Aviation and Rocket and Space Engineering.
The faculty graduates are in demand not only at the enterprises of the Chelyabinsk and Sverdlovsk regions, but also in the Moscow Region, and in the Far East, they work at the Vostochny Cosmodrome, at the Fakel design bureau in Kaliningrad, which deals with electric rocket engines for space systems, and at the enterprises of the Moscow Region, and in Samara. Graduates of the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering are the future of cosmonautics. Dmitriy Petelin, a Russian test cosmonaut of the cosmonaut corps of the Roscosmos State Corporation, is currently a member of the cosmonaut corps and is preparing for a flight to the ISS.
“It should be noted that the main bias in the training of specialists was towards the defence industry 5 years ago. In recent years, we have interesting civilian tasks, for example, we have been offered to work on a very promising project to create a reusable single-stage launch vehicle. The idea belongs to and is being developed by the State Rocket Centre. The project is being developed as part of the Advanced Industrial Technologies and Materials UIREC with the support of the Governor of the Chelyabinsk Region, who has allocated 70 million roubles for research, development, production and testing of a number of models and demonstrators of key technologies, on the basis of which the Korona complex will be designed. This is not only a launch vehicle, but also ground infrastructure, navigation, facilities - a huge range of works, and we are only at the beginning of the journey,” says Viktor Fyodorov, Dean of the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, Candidate of Sciences (Engineering).
Most recent projects and training of specialists
Academic and administrative staff of the faculty are actively involved in research and development. At present the most important project is the project to create a low-thrust liquid-propellant rocket engine, on the basis of which an engine demonstrator with a central body will be assembled. The technology is key to reusable launch vehicles.
The second field of research is the possibility of creating tanks for cryogenic fuel components from composite materials, primarily from carbon fibre reinforced plastics. Cryogenic hydrogen has a temperature of 257 degrees Celsius below zero; at this temperature plastics become brittle and do not work well. This problem is being solved by scientists.
Many specialists who had graduated from the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering took part in the creation of objects for the Russian space program. In particular, Vasily Salich, deputy chief designer of NIIMash in Nizhnyaya Salda, participated in the development, creation and testing of low-thrust engines for the entire space system, for the Soyuz spacecraft and various satellite platforms.
“One of the fields that the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering has been working on for two years is to ensure the Earth's asteroid protection - asteroid safety. Within the framework of this field, it is planned to create a lander for soft landing on the surface of asteroids. The task is a complex one, students of the faculty and other institutes are working on it. They have completed the stage of the technical proposal, preliminary design and technical design,” says Ruslan Peshkov, Candidate of Sciences (Engineering), Associate Professor.
It is planned to design structural elements, in particular, the lander frame, in order to conduct a series of tests. The documents for registration of the patent for the invention were submitted last year. The next step after obtaining the patent will be to work with enterprises and industrial partners of the university.
Education at the faculty is implemented in the best traditions of Russian higher education and combines fundamental general scientific and general engineering training with a large volume of laboratory and design work. The technical base of the faculty, together with laboratories, computing classes and a library is the Rocket and Space Technology Education Centre named after V.P. Makeyev, which contains a unique collection of samples of rocket and space technology. The faculty has formed a highly qualified research and academic team, including 15 doctors of sciences, 41 candidates of sciences. And 110 state-financed places are provided in 2021.
Students have the opportunity to undergo internship at Roscosmos enterprises, which provides practice-oriented training, and the modern material and technical equipment of the faculty laboratories allows them to conduct scientific research at a high level.
South Ural State University (SUSU) is a university of digital transformations, where innovative research is conducted in most of the priority fields of science and technology development. In accordance with the strategy of scientific and technological development of the Russian Federation, the university is focused on the development of big scientific interdisciplinary projects in the field of digital industry, materials science, and ecology. In the Year of Science and Technology, it will take part in the competition under the Priority-2030 program. The university acts as a regional project office of the World-class Ural Interregional Research and Education Centre (UIREC).