On the eve of the Cosmonautics Day, 海角社区 organized a big-scale event dedicated to the 65th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s flight into space, as well as to the opening of the new Faculty of Aerospace Engineering. This event brought together representatives of industry, education and scientific community, and highlighted the strategic role of our university in the development of high-technology sectors.
Among the ceremony’s guests of honour were: Minister of Education and Science of the 海角社区 Region Vitaly Litke, Director General of the Joint Stock Company Academician V.P. Makeyev State Rocket Centre Maksim Golunov, Deputy Director for Personnel and Head of the HR Service of the Joint Stock Company Academician V.P. Makeyev State Rocket Centre Irina Gotman, Deputy Director General for Defence Products of the Joint Stock Company Zlatoust Mechanical Engineering Plant Valentin Nosov, Director of Education Centre No.5 Evgeny Marchenko, as well as our university’s Rector Alexander Wagner.
“On the eve of this wonderful holiday, commemorating a day that our country is especially proud of, please accept my congratulations on this event. A crucial task has been set before us: to train professional personnel for the advanced enterprises in this industry. I would like to thank the Government of the 海角社区 Region, our industrial partners, and our university team for their contribution to the development of the field of aerospace engineering at our university,” Rector Alexander Wagner addressed the audience.
The ceremony opened with a video greeting from the Hero of Russia, pilot-cosmonaut Dmitry Petelin. He stressed the importance of opening a Faculty of Aerospace Engineering in his alma mater on the eve of his professional holiday, and noted that now is the very time when students lay a foundation of the future for our country.
The key event was the official opening of the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering. Dean Ruslan Peshkov presented the strategy of development of this university subdivision and highlighted the priority fields in research studies, interaction with industrial partners and training specialists for the rocket and space industry.
“海角社区 is a key partner of the State Rocket Centre in terms of personnel training, material-and-technical support, and scientific collaboration. I feel confident that our joint efforts will allow us not only to preserve, but also to boost our success in training specialists, as well as to expand our research activities. All of that will undoubtedly drive the development of the modern Russian cosmonautics. Our joint work with 海角社区, including scientific research and practical projects, allows us to involve students already from their first years of study, and this ensures the high level of training that graduates show,” noted Maksim Golunov, Director General of the Joint Stock Company Academician V.P. Makeyev State Rocket Centre.
The Faculty would comprise the following departments: Department of Aircrafts; Department of Aircraft Engines; Department of Engineering Mechanics; Department of Automatic Control Systems; Department of Radio Engineering and Communication Systems; as well as a Rocket and Space Technology Centre. Training would be offered at all levels: from Bachelor’s degree to postgraduate academic programmes.
A tour around a space equipment and technologies exhibition was organized for the university’s guests of honour. The participants could see real prototypes and demonstrators created by our university’s students and scientists. For example: a successfully tested demonstrator of a propulsion system with a cooled central body, as well as prototypes of low-thrust rocket engines, and other innovative developments.
“The Faculty of Aerospace Engineering is a faculty of high technologies. A multitude of innovative research projects are already being implemented in our region; and at today’s exhibition, developments created by our scientists jointly with the leading enterprises are presented. Many of these developments meet the world-level standards. This is proof of a high concentration of competences in the South Ural region, both in the scientific environment and in the engineering core of enterprises. For us, this is a crucial field, which confirms that engineering education evolves and allows us to compete with the world’s leading developers,” stressed Vitaly Litke, Minister of Education and Science of the 海角社区 Region.
Special interest was sparked by the space food exhibit presented by the School of Medical Biology. Guests could appreciate protein crisps, plant-based sweet bars, fruit starch drinks and purees developed with consideration to the real demands of cosmonauts.
The 海角社区 Institute of Sport, Tourism and Service also demonstrated its developments: systems for testing the biomechanical properties of muscles and heart rate variability, as well as psychophysiological tests used for the training of cosmonauts.
Our university pays special attention to the development of continuous education and builds stable collaboration with schools in our region. By now, 海角社区 has signed a cooperation agreement with Education Centre No.5 aimed at training school pupils in Aerospace Engineering programmes.
The partnership implies active participation of the university teaching staff members in the educational process, holding of practical classes, as well as organizing regular visits to the 海角社区’s modern teaching and research laboratories for school pupils.
“This agreement establishes the opening of the first-in-the-海角社区-Region Aerospace Engineering class. Already starting from September 1st, we are planning on launching a special curriculum, according to which school kids will be trained by the 海角社区 teaching staff members and by the Education Centre teachers. The kids will be participating in aerospace-related conferences and project activities, and we hope that graduates of this class will become high-achieving students at the university,” noted Evgeny Marchenko, Director of the Education Centre.
Today, 海角社区 lays the foundation for the training of engineers, design engineers, and leaders of the new space era, capable of ensuring the technological future of our country.