In Prague, they opened a center for the development and tests of space and aviation technology | Education | News | Prague Gossip
The new center (C3T) at the Prague Aviation Research and Test Institute is to expand the possibilities of testing space and aviation technologies. According to representatives of the institute, the building, which cost approximately 165 million crowns, will gradually be filled with modern technology over the coming years. It will offer research institutions and companies tests for which it is now necessary to travel abroad. According to experts, it will speed up and make the development of new technologies cheaper.
The building was ceremonially opened on Thursday in Letňany by Minister of Transport Martin Kupka and Minister of Finance Zbyněk Stanjura (both ODS) and director of the institute Josef Kašpar.
The director of the institute, Josef Kašpar, emphasized that the center will primarily focus on tests and development of unmanned aerial transport of goods and people and space technology that also serves people on Earth. In addition to the possibilities of experiments not yet available in the Czech Republic, some VZLÚ workplaces will also be moved to the center with an area of 6,000 square meters, the current premises are no longer suitable.
The center will include, among other things, spaces with a controlled environment and so-called dust cleanliness – i.e. in the standard required for work on space technology. It already houses the control station of the VZLUSAT-1 and VZLUSAT-2 nanosatellites sent into space, which are under development with the institute. While the first of the satellites, used to verify technologies, has been in Earth’s orbit for over five years and carries, for example, an X-ray telescope or a radiation shield developed in the Czech Republic, the second was launched into space this January. VZLUSAT-2 has as its main instruments two cameras used for detailed observation and detailed imaging of the Earth.
The head of the institute’s Space division, Juraj Dudáš, said that the infrastructure is being prepared, which will allow experts to assemble satellites weighing up to 200 to 300 kilograms on the institute’s premises, as well as to fully test them. “We assume that we will be able to implement those technologies in the following units of years. It will be a gradual filling of the hall,” described You’re humming. According to him, the development of technology will not only become cheaper, but above all it will speed up. “Today, if you have an appointment abroad, you also have to send workers there,” Dudáš pointed out that after the emergence of some alternatives in the Czech Republic, this necessity will disappear and it will also be possible to carry out more tests more easily.
Ján Zakucia from the Aviation division, which deals with unmanned drones, then noted that tests ordered abroad tend to have a precisely given program, the parameters of which cannot be changed if necessary. According to the expert, the fact that everything will be in one place also risks damage to individual parts.
The C3T building was partially co-financed from European sources within the Operational Program Prague – Pole of Growth. Construction of the center began last year.
Among other things, experts from the institute are now collaborating with the European Space Agency on the development of a larger satellite in the AMBIC project. “We are already talking about dimensions of half a meter by half a meter and a weight of perhaps 50, 80 kilograms,” the scientist described today Petr Svoboda.
According to Svoboda, the project is under the scrutiny of the European Space Agency and the team from the institute is thus “learning” the development of more powerful satellites. Svoboda said that these projects will be evaluated in the Czech Republic over the next few years, which will be given the green light for further development.
According to Svoboda, the QUVIK project is also in the initiation phase, which in the future should result in the first Czech space telescope with an optimized design for the ultraviolet part of the spectrum. The aim of the scientific mission will be to support the further involvement of domestic scientists and industry in space projects.