Putin Is Knocking Ukraine's Space Industry Out of Orbit

The launch of a new European space plane on Wednesday, Feb. 11, is a rare instance of good news for Ukraine's space industry, which has been increasingly at risk from the grinding conflict with Russia.

Ukraine's state-owned Yuzhnoye Design Bureau helped develop the rocket that carried the European Space Agency's new IXV experimental reentry vehicle from the Kourou launch center in French Guiana. Yuzhnoye, descended from a Soviet-era designer of ballistic missiles, has developed a business supplying rocket technology to Western partners. Its headquarters in the city of Dnepropetrovsk sits less than 150 miles from the fighting in eastern Ukraine. Still, says Oleg Ventskovsky, the company's representative in Brussels, "it's more or less business as usual."