Some of Russia's brightest students will help a Swiss aerospace startup build launch systems for small satellites under a partnership announced Monday.
Students from Bauman Moscow State Technical University will join a group of international technical advisers at Swiss Space Systems-S3 for onsite training and work on propulsion systems in Lausanne, Switzerland, the two sides said.
"This is a great day for our company, and this partnership will bring other opportunities of collaboration with Russians whose outstanding achievements in aerospace have left a mark on history," S3 CEO and founder Pascal Jaussi said in a statement.
S3, founded in 2012, has a budget of 250 million Swiss francs ($274 million) to develop, build, certify and operate its first suborbital shuttle to deploy small satellites weighing up to 250 kilograms.
The Russian students will join their peers from the Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium) and AerospaceDesignLab at Stanford University (U.S.), as well as experts from the European Space Agency, under a memorandum of understanding signed Monday between the company and the university.
"This will promote the visibility of new projects that are even more ambitious and will allow our students and doctoral candidates to come to Switzerland for internships at flagship sites of Swiss education and industry," Bauman rector Anatoly Alexandrov said.
Swiss Ambassador Pierre Helg praised the partnership as a step toward closer contacts between Switzerland and Russia.
Bauman Moscow State Technical University, established in 1830, is considered a world leader in the education of aerospace engineers. It has 19,000 students, including more than 1,000 pursuing doctorates.
Swiss Space Systems Holding has 40 employees and is based in Payerne, Switzerland.
