Vladimir Suprunyuck, Igor Suprunyuck's father, in his interview to Segodnya stated that he had been employed at Yuzhmash as a test pilot, often flying with Leonid Kuchma, the future president of Ukraine, and continuing to serve as his personal pilot on domestic flights after Kuchma's rise to power.
In 1954 the Soviet government transformed the initially intended car producer Yuzhmash (Dnipropetrovsk) into a rocket factory.
Missiles produced at Yuzhmash included the first nuclear armed Soviet rocket R-5M (SS-3 'Shyster'), the R-12 Dvina (SS-4 'Sandal'), the R-14 Chusovaya (SS-5 'Skean'), the first widely deployed Soviet ICBM R-16 (SS-7 'Saddler'), the R-36 (SS-9 'Scarp'), the MR-UR-100 Sotka (SS-17 'Spanker'), and the R-36M (SS-18 'Satan').
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In the late 1980s, Yuzhmash was selected to be the main production facility of the RT-2UTTKh Topol-M ICBM (SS-27 "Sickle B").
Yuzhmash |
The National Space Agency of Ukraine, besides to Sea Launch project, is involved in cooperation with American Rockwell Int. Company in search of potential customers for launches of Cyclon carrier rockets produced by YuzhMash Production Union.