EVENT

Ukrainian rocketeers testing next-generation avionics

The Ukrainian rocket Dnipro was once again launched from the Yasny test range in Orenburg oblast, Russia. It put the Swedish and French spacecrafts – Prisma and Picard, respectively, – into a low Earth orbit. According to the Pivdenne design bureau’s PR center, the former consists of two coupled satellites intended for testing guidance, navigation and control technologies. The latter will be used by French scientists for exploring the Sun, namely, finding its size and measuring its surface and radiation density, in order to assess the influence of solar activity variations on the climate of Earth. The Dnipro rocket’s third stage also contains BPA-1, a next-generation avionics unit manufactured by Ukrainian specialists in Kharkiv and Kyiv. As the Pivdenne spokesman Yurii Moshnenko told The Day, this unit is supposed to replace the gyroscope, an instrument used for measuring deviation angles and stabilizing the rocket in flight. “BPA-1 is an experimental device to be used in the navigation systems of spacecraft, launch vehicles, and civil aircraft. It was manufactured by national specialists at the request of the National Space Agency of Ukraine. The tests have produced remote-sensing data on this unit’s performance, which are being processed now,” Moshnenko said. According to a press release of the Pivdenne design bureau’s PR center, it is the 15th launch of the Dnipro, which is based on the RS-20 decommissioned ballistic missile. As part of this program, 54 spacecraft from 14 countries have been put into a low Earth orbit.

Ivano-Frankivsk sells carbon credits to carry out energy-efficiency projects

The Multilateral Carbon Credit Fund (MCCF), established by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the European Investment Bank (EIB), is going to buy carbon credits from the Ivano-Frankivsk Teplokomenergo state-run facility, the EIB website reports. The report says that credits will be bought in compliance with the Kyoto Protocol after the facility introduces energy-efficient technologies and cuts its greenhouse gas emissions. It is planned, in particular, to update the heating system by replacing old boilers, install biomass-operated boilers, and install gas generation plants. It was reported that the EBRD has given Ivano-Frankivsk a €11.7 million-worth credit for improving the public utilities and reducing energy resource losses. MCCF participants are Finland, Belgium, Ireland, Luxembourg, Spain and Sweden, as well as five private companies.

The four dimensions of Сhina

The National Museum of Ukrainian Traditional Decorative Art is now the venue for an international exhibit “Four Aspects,” representing exclusive authorial china by four leading china artists of today: Borys Danilov (Kyiv, Ukraine), Sergei Sokolov (Saint Petersburg, Russia), Aris Seglins (Riga, Latvia), and Paulina Knight (Spain).

This international project comprises a full-scale exhibit of exclusive modern porcelain (more than 200 items), representing exquisite objects with original graphic compositions and paintings, delicate in design and color. They exhibit expressive spatial forms, demonstrating the plastic qualities of china, and decorative, dramatic installations.

A film will accompany the exhibit. The name is symbolic: nature has four seasons, there are four cardinal points, four elements, and four ages in human life. So the exhibit gives us the insight of four talented, original modern painters into the art of china, its role and place in life, and into this material’s potential.

Over recent decades the artists working with china have tended to create figurative spatial forms using complicated techniques. The image is transformed, which dramatically changes the very essence of decorative art, whose main peculiarity now is the departure from a purely utilitarian function.

The exhibit is important because it strives not only to represent the art of the leading porcelain painters of today, but also draws public attention to the problem of the preservation and development of china factories in the time of their almost complete extinction. Among the participants is also the Imperial Porcelain Factory Ltd. (Saint Petersburgh, Russia). The event was masterminded by the National Museum of Ukrainian Traditional Decorative Art and the International Art Studio of Ukraine. The exhibit will be open till August15.