Orbital ATK [OA] is continuing to collaborate with International Space Company Kosmotras—a joint project formed by Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan—on ideas for the sputtering Dnepr Program, which involves converting ICBMs to space launch vehicles that carry iridium satellites into orbit.
Ighor Uzhinsky, a senior employee for Orbital ATK’s Flight group, during a presentation April 20 said Kosmotras officials were to meet with Orbital ATK officials the following week. “We’re going to talk about a number of things,” Uzhinsky said during a presentation at George Washington University. “So we will present what we want to do, but Dnepr is a great, great program. It is very reliable, very capable. And we do have some ideas how we can use that.” Uzhinsky said there are 55 rockets still available, sitting in silos waiting for refurbishment. “If those rockets get restored, they’ll stay in silos forever,” he said.
Russian officials told U.S. diplomats in December that Moscow was refusing any more U.S. help securing the country’s stockpiles of weapons-grade uranium and plutonium, a program that dates back to the 1990s. Uzhinsky, an Orbital ATK employee since 1995, said Russia now has the financial means to protect its nuclear material, unlike two decades ago, when the country was receiving $500 million a year for Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR).
“At the time of the ‘90s, $500 million per year was comparable to all the World Bank, for example, loans and everything else. So this was huge,” he said. “[Russia] can easily afford [CTR] if they want….I think that we still leveraged a lot from this ability, because we created great relationships, we helped each other to work together.”