On 12 April, an exhibition dedicated to Cosmonautics Day was opened in the main building of VSU. The exhibition was located in the lobby on the first floor. The main exhibits were models of four engines developed by the Voronezh Chemical Automatics Design Bureau (KBKHA).
The RD-0109 rocket engine was used as part of the third stage of the Vostok rocket, which successfully launched Yuri Gagarin into space on 12 April 1961. Later, the engine was used in all domestic launches with a single person on board.
Since 2006, the 14D23 rocket engine has been used in the third stage of Soyuz-2.1b, Soyuz 2.1v, and Soyuz-STB space launchers. The rockets were launched from the Baikonur, Plesetsk, and Kuru (French Guiana) launch sites. The engine has the best operating cost-effectiveness among all oxygen-kerosene rocket engines in the world.
The RD-0410 nuclear rocket engine is used for the acceleration and deceleration of spacecraft, as well as for orbit corrections in deep space exploration. It underwent comprehensive full-scale cold tests, as well as a series of full-scale hot tests with reactor activation at the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site. The results of the work on engine development became the basis for the construction of multi-mode nuclear power propulsion systems for spacecraft.
The 58L hypersonic scramjet engine is used to accelerate aircraft to hypersonic speed in the atmosphere. The engine was successfully tested as part of the Kholod Hypersonic Flying Laboratory project, during which the speed of Mach 6.35 (the speed of sound in air; it is assumed that Mach 1 equals 333 m/s; the values above Mach 5 are considered hypersonic) was achieved for the first time. The engine’s running time was 77 seconds.
The exhibition opening was attended by KBKHA representatives, VSU administration, lecturers, and students. Viktor Gorokhov, Chief Designer at KBKHA, spoke about the history of the RD-109 rocket engine. The engine was developed by teams from KBKHA and Voronezh Mechanical Plant.
Vladimir Kostin, Professor of the Department of Mathematical Modelling at VSU, who worked in the early 1960s as a design technician at KBKHA (at that time it was called the design bureau of the “p/ya 20” enterprise), recalled his participation in the RD-109 engine development program.
Turning from history to the present, Vladimir Sukhorukov, deputy director for IT at KBKHA, highlighted the enterprise’s current developments in the field of IT and invited university students for internships and employment.
Then, Oleg Ovchinnikov, Dean of the Faculty of Physics, and Maria Burlutskaya, Dean of the Faculty of Mathematics, reported on cooperation between the faculties and KBKHA and on joint educational programmes and projects.
Dmitry Endovitsky, Rector of VSU, drew attention to the pennant of the university, also presented at the exhibition. In 2018, the 100th anniversary of the University, the pennant was carried to the ISS thanks to the university’s friends in the space industry. Russian cosmonauts put their signatures on it.
“Thus, a part of Voronezh University has been to space,” concluded the rector.
