State Space Agency of Ukraine

The State Space Agency of Ukraine, known as SSAU, is the Ukrainian government agency responsible for space policy and programs. It was formed on 29 February 1992 based on Soviet space program infrastructure that remained in Ukraine after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and it was called the National Space Agency of Ukraine until 9 December 2010. The agency has no spaceport of its own and used the resources of the Russian Federal Space Agency until 2014, launching from Baikonur in Kazakhstan and Plesetsk in Russia; after the Russian annexation of Crimea, launches moved to the Sea Launch floating platform, which was soon mothballed. Since the start of the Russo Ukrainian War in 2014 the agency has transitioned its cooperation away from Russia toward other space programs, and it maintains ground control and tracking facilities in Kyiv and a control center in Dunaivtsi.