Usov’s appointment was not straightforward. The cabinet announced him as the winner of the competition for the post of head of the SSAU on 27 December 2019, ten days after the State Bureau of Investigation obtained a search warrant in the Gutenbergz case. The company was founded in 2011 by Usov and partners and produced interactive books and electronic textbooks. As TSN reported, searches on the night before the competition final took place both at Usov’s home and at the office. There is no verdict in the case, and the SBI investigation concerns textbook procurement in Mykolaiv region. By an order dated 24 January 2020, he was appointed for five years with a six-month probation period, and on 5 February he was presented to the agency’s staff.
In the interview, Usov described the agency as a complex mechanism. The SSAU manages 24 entities: 15 state enterprises, 3 joint-stock companies, 1 state holding and 5 budgetary institutions. His proposal was to leave the agency with two functions, state customer and regulator, and transfer production enterprises to holdings. According to him, without such a restructuring the industry will continue to drag along on a budget that is not allocated to it in full.
The most acute question concerned rocket fuel. As of 1 January 2020, 1,802.3 tonnes of solid rocket fuel were stored at warehouses in Pavlohrad, and its disposal, according to Usov, will take another 17–18 years. In 2019, UAH 185.9 million was allocated for this work, UAH 163 million was set aside for 2020, but by August the money had still not arrived. The sixth space programme for 2021–2025, according to his plan, needed to be passed through the Rada before the 2021 budget was adopted, otherwise, as he believed, funding would again be stretched over months.
Without its own satellites
Ukraine has had no satellites of its own in orbit since the end of 2012. The last launch, Sich-2, took place on 17 August 2011. The agency is looking for two foreign spaceports for launches and is considering its own options. One of them was air launch: a rocket is carried to altitude by an aircraft, which is cheaper than a ground complex. This concerns two Il-76 aircraft from Yuzhmash, which are to put 150–200 kilograms of payload into orbit per launch. The project is estimated at about $150 million. The Canadian MLS, according to Usov, will be ready in about three years.
For small business, the agency proposed two platforms: Oko for Earth remote sensing and Ametyst for intellectual property developed by Dniprocosmos. The goal, according to Usov, was 5–10 startups a year, and 47 applications were under consideration. He estimated the Lybid-2 rocket from the Yuzhnoye design bureau at about UAH 5 billion and said it would not be built in the near future.
Yuzhmash became the most prominent example in the interview of how an enterprise is changing. According to Usov, the plant has paid off wage arrears, and payments to the budget are deferred until 2025. Negotiations are ongoing with Korea’s Karis on an electric bus project worth up to $1 billion and with the Czech Vítkovice on hydrogen engines worth €50 million. At the end of the interview, Usov said that one of the key formulations may become outdated:
“the phrase ‘Ukraine is a space power’ may become merely a nostalgic memory”
Usov himself in March 2020 gave an interview to UNIAN, in May gave a long interview to where he spoke about Russia’s pressure on Brazil, and in June answered questions about Lybid for Ekonomichna Pravda. Even then his position was disputed. As Antikor wrote, in July 2020 more than 100 MPs demanded Usov’s dismissal, and the appeal was published by lawyer Masi Nayyem.
The denouement came in autumn. On 12 November Ukraine joined the Artemis Accords, and on 16 November, by a cabinet order, Usov was dismissed under Article 87 of the law on civil service. Mykhailo Lev became acting head. On 15 December Usov filed a lawsuit in the Kyiv District Administrative Court against the cabinet and the SSAU, and on 21 December the court opened proceedings, scheduling a preparatory hearing for 18 January 2021.
In January 2021, Deputy Prime Minister Oleh Urusky appointed Volodymyr Taftai, a finalist in the same 2019 competition, as head of the agency.
1
