Cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev visits Lobachevsky University’s Advanced Engineering School
Test cosmonaut, Hero of Russia Oleg Artemyev visited Lobachevsky University on 31 October. He met with future engineers - students of the UNN Advanced Engineering School (AES) and also held a meeting with Oleg Trofimov, Acting Rector of Lobachevsky University. The visit took place as part of the development programme of the UNN Advanced Engineering School "Space Communication, Radar and Navigation".
The cosmonaut shared with the students his memories about the space flights and the life of the crew on the ISS, and also spoke about the achievements of Russian cosmonautics and the importance of scientific research in space.
"The Advanced Engineering School of UNN with its focus on space has been recently established, and it faces great educational and scientific challenges. I am sure that in the coming years we will be able to see serious results, we will see new engineering staff for our rocket and space industry, people who are on the level of Sergei Korolev and Elon Musk, who are capable of seeing into the future, who can follow up projects from the beginning until they go into space, into production," said pilot-cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev.
Oleg Trofimov, UNN Acting Rector, pointed out that it was a great honour for the university to host Oleg Artemyev, Hero of the Russian Federation, who has made eight spacewalks, especially since the university is very keen on space exploration: the Advanced Engineering School "Space Communication, Radar and Navigation" provides training for engineers and implements serious research projects.
"Advanced Engineering Schools is a major project that was launched in Russia last year; 30 such schools have been established, including the UNN AES. Our aim is to train advanced engineering staff who will initiate the development of new products and technologies, including space technologies," said Oleg Trofimov.
According to Nikolai Starostin, Head of the UNN AES, students follow Advanced Engineering School’s educational programmes and participate in research projects implemented by the School’s relevant departments: "Space Communications", " Radar and Radio Communications", "Radiophotonics and Optoelectronics", "Design and Automation of Microelectronic Devices Production", "Materials for Electronics".
"We provide our students with a university foundation of basic knowledge and specialisation for the particular needs of high-tech enterprises. Our master's students are directly involved in the process of creating new technologies and products. In the future, our graduates will be able to design and use engineering software to solve a whole range of tasks from automated design and control of microchip production to modelling the communication systems of an orbiting constellation of space satellites. Materials for microelectronics; photon computing systems; intelligent airspace control systems - all AES areas of study are based on a significant research and development component," said Nikolai Starostin.
Semyon Smirnov, a master's student at the Institute of Information Technology, Mathematics and Mechanics of Lobachevsky University, shared that when he was a boy he dreamed of becoming a cosmonaut, but as he grew up he became interested in engineering, which is why he enrolled in the UNN Advanced Engineering School.
"My research work is in the field of computational geometry. It is in some way or another related to space, because before any spacecraft is physically created, it is modelled on a computer, and I am just helping to develop the engineering software. In other words, as part of our studies at the AES, we are involved in real projects and collaborate with many research centres and IT companies in Nizhny Novgorod," said the student.
Lobachevsky University became one of the winners of the competition under the federal project "Advanced Engineering Schools" launched in 2022 at the initiative of the Russian Ministry of Education and Science.
