Space Research Institute under NAS-NSAU was set up in 1996 by a joint decision of NAS Presidium and the National Space Agency of Ukraine (NSAU) on the basis of Control- Systems Department under NAS V. M. Glushkov Institute of Cybernetics to organize, implement and coordinate R&D efforts in Ukraine towards space exploration.
Its principal research areas are:
- Sun-Earth relations and space weather;
- space information systems and technologies, methods of space data processing;
- space materials science;
- development and production of advanced equipment for space research;
- the theory and methods of automatic control of complex dynamic aerospace systems.
Major achievements and developments:
- Processing, analysis and interpretation of the results of Variant satellite space experiment on board SICH-1M space vehicle has been carried out; Nordis-Variant software-hardware complex for aquiring data of space experiment has been developed.
- Processing and physical interpretation of observation results of magnetosphere plasma was made during the implementation of Interboll international space project.
- Forecast models of geomagnetic storms have been developed during studying Sun-Earth relations; they served as bases for forecasting space weather.
- Analytical and numerical models of collective processes interactions in lithosphere-atmosphere-ionosphere-magnetosphere system have been developed.
- A pilot version of the Ukrainian Grid-system has been produced for processing satellite data; on its basis the on-line service of weather forecasting has been organized.
- New robust methods have been developed to estimate states and parameters of dynamic systems under uncertainty conditions; algorithms of ellipsoid estimation, based on the abovementioned methods, are used in navigation and automatic control systems of SICH-series space vehicles.
The Institute holds annual all-Ukrainian conferences on space research, attended by foreign scientists. Space Research Institute has prepared a draft of the National space program of Ukraine for 2008 -2012 and the Long-term program of Russian-Ukrainian scientific research and experiments in the Russian segment of the International Space Station.