Piorun
Well-known member
This thread is intended to focus on news about space flight research currently conducted in Poland, as well as on the development of domestic rocket and satellite projects.
Historical timeline:
1852/1853 — Ignacy Łukasiewicz, the inventor of kerosene lamp, distills kerosene — an essential propellant of future space launchers (in its perfected form known as RP-1).
1883, April 5th — Two scientists of the Jagiellonian University — Zygmunt Wróblewski and Karol Olszewski, manage to produce liquid oxygen (LOX) for the first time in the history. LOX later becomes one of the most important oxidizers in astronautics.
1903 — A Polish-Russian academician, Konstanty Ciołkowski ("Konstantin Tsiolkovsky" in Russian) publishes his pioneering theoretical work titled "Exploration of Outer Space by Means of Rocket Devices", which lays the groundwork for future space rocket designs. According to Ciołkowski’s work, composition of certain chemicals shall be sufficient to accelerate a spacecraft to the orbital speed (ca. 8 km/s).
1918 — A Polish catholic friar (and later — a saint martyr of the catholic church), father Maksymilian M. Kolbe during his studies in Italy publishes a proposal of the "Etereoplan" — an early concept of an interplanetary spacecraft. Kolbe presented his work with computations and drawings in the Italian magazine Scienza per Tutti. Despite his German ancestry (his father was a polonized German), Kolbe dies in 1941 as a prisoner of the Auschwitz Nazi German Death Camp, as he volunteered to take place of another prisoner, a former Polish POW, designated to execution.
1932 — Ary Sternfeld, a Polish Jewish engineer finishes his monograph titled "Introduction to Cosmonautics”, coining the term "cosmonautics". Two years later, Sternfeld invents the bi-ellpitic transfer.
May — July 1944 — Polish resistance movement recovers remnants of a Nazi German V2 missile and delivers them to the United Kingdom for further examination. It should be noted that during the second world war, hundreds of forced laborers from Poland, as well as Czechoslovakia, France and the USSR worked on the assembly of the Rocket Baron’s missiles. Many of them sabotaged von Braun's tools of destruction, in result paying the highest price as a violent punishment by the occupants.
1950s—1960s — Numerous technological tests of various rocket designs (incl. e.g. RD-42, RM-2, "RASKO” series).
1961—1973 — With the Meteor Program, Poland becomes the sixth country in the world conducting atmospheric research with domestically made strato- and mesospheric sounding rockets.
1970, October 7th — The 3rd Meteor 2K sounding rocket achieves the Kármán Line.
1970s — Participation in the Interkosmos Program (esp. in satellite researches and sounding rocketry).
1973, April 19th — Launch of the Polish-Soviet scientific satellite Interkosmos 9 (a.k.a. Kopernik 500), for commemoration of the 500th anniversary of birth of Mikołaj Kopernik (better known in the rest of the world under his latinised name "Nicolaus Copernicus").
1970s—1980s — Participation in the USSR-led Bion Program.
1978 June 26th — July 5th — Cosmonaut Mirosław Hermaszewski together with Soviet Belorussian cosmonaut Pyotr Klimuk aboard of Soyuz 30 visits Salyut 6 space station. Poland becomes the 4th country of the world, whose citizen flew into space.
1980s — The Space Research Centre of Polish Academy of Sciences provides a part of scientific payload for the Soviet Fobos probes.
1990s — Commencement of cooperation with Western countries in space exploration of the Solar System. The Space Research Centre of Polish Academy of Sciences provides its first contribution to a Western space mission (temperature and thermal conductivity sensor for the Huygens lander and designs layouts of electronic systems for sensors measuring physical properties of Titan). After Cassini-Huygens, contributions take place in relation to other deep space missions follow (including, but not limited to, InSight and JUICE).
2012, November 19th — Accession to the European Space Agency.
2014, September 26th — Establishment of the Polish Space Agency (POLSA).
2017 — Commencement of flight trials of the ILR-33 suborbital sounding rocket. As of 2023, development of the ILR-33 is still ongoing.
June 2022 — May 2023 — Concept works on the first national lunar mission take place. According to the statement of the Director of POLSA on summarising the aforementioned feasibility study, preparations to the lunar mission shall commence in 2023.
2023, July 21st — The Perun commercial suborbital launcher performs its final test prior to crossing the Kármán line scheduled for autumn 2023.
Historical timeline:
1852/1853 — Ignacy Łukasiewicz, the inventor of kerosene lamp, distills kerosene — an essential propellant of future space launchers (in its perfected form known as RP-1).
1883, April 5th — Two scientists of the Jagiellonian University — Zygmunt Wróblewski and Karol Olszewski, manage to produce liquid oxygen (LOX) for the first time in the history. LOX later becomes one of the most important oxidizers in astronautics.
1903 — A Polish-Russian academician, Konstanty Ciołkowski ("Konstantin Tsiolkovsky" in Russian) publishes his pioneering theoretical work titled "Exploration of Outer Space by Means of Rocket Devices", which lays the groundwork for future space rocket designs. According to Ciołkowski’s work, composition of certain chemicals shall be sufficient to accelerate a spacecraft to the orbital speed (ca. 8 km/s).
1918 — A Polish catholic friar (and later — a saint martyr of the catholic church), father Maksymilian M. Kolbe during his studies in Italy publishes a proposal of the "Etereoplan" — an early concept of an interplanetary spacecraft. Kolbe presented his work with computations and drawings in the Italian magazine Scienza per Tutti. Despite his German ancestry (his father was a polonized German), Kolbe dies in 1941 as a prisoner of the Auschwitz Nazi German Death Camp, as he volunteered to take place of another prisoner, a former Polish POW, designated to execution.
1932 — Ary Sternfeld, a Polish Jewish engineer finishes his monograph titled "Introduction to Cosmonautics”, coining the term "cosmonautics". Two years later, Sternfeld invents the bi-ellpitic transfer.
May — July 1944 — Polish resistance movement recovers remnants of a Nazi German V2 missile and delivers them to the United Kingdom for further examination. It should be noted that during the second world war, hundreds of forced laborers from Poland, as well as Czechoslovakia, France and the USSR worked on the assembly of the Rocket Baron’s missiles. Many of them sabotaged von Braun's tools of destruction, in result paying the highest price as a violent punishment by the occupants.
1950s—1960s — Numerous technological tests of various rocket designs (incl. e.g. RD-42, RM-2, "RASKO” series).
1961—1973 — With the Meteor Program, Poland becomes the sixth country in the world conducting atmospheric research with domestically made strato- and mesospheric sounding rockets.
1970, October 7th — The 3rd Meteor 2K sounding rocket achieves the Kármán Line.
1970s — Participation in the Interkosmos Program (esp. in satellite researches and sounding rocketry).
1973, April 19th — Launch of the Polish-Soviet scientific satellite Interkosmos 9 (a.k.a. Kopernik 500), for commemoration of the 500th anniversary of birth of Mikołaj Kopernik (better known in the rest of the world under his latinised name "Nicolaus Copernicus").
1970s—1980s — Participation in the USSR-led Bion Program.
1978 June 26th — July 5th — Cosmonaut Mirosław Hermaszewski together with Soviet Belorussian cosmonaut Pyotr Klimuk aboard of Soyuz 30 visits Salyut 6 space station. Poland becomes the 4th country of the world, whose citizen flew into space.
1980s — The Space Research Centre of Polish Academy of Sciences provides a part of scientific payload for the Soviet Fobos probes.
1990s — Commencement of cooperation with Western countries in space exploration of the Solar System. The Space Research Centre of Polish Academy of Sciences provides its first contribution to a Western space mission (temperature and thermal conductivity sensor for the Huygens lander and designs layouts of electronic systems for sensors measuring physical properties of Titan). After Cassini-Huygens, contributions take place in relation to other deep space missions follow (including, but not limited to, InSight and JUICE).
2012, November 19th — Accession to the European Space Agency.
2014, September 26th — Establishment of the Polish Space Agency (POLSA).
2017 — Commencement of flight trials of the ILR-33 suborbital sounding rocket. As of 2023, development of the ILR-33 is still ongoing.
June 2022 — May 2023 — Concept works on the first national lunar mission take place. According to the statement of the Director of POLSA on summarising the aforementioned feasibility study, preparations to the lunar mission shall commence in 2023.
2023, July 21st — The Perun commercial suborbital launcher performs its final test prior to crossing the Kármán line scheduled for autumn 2023.
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, in July 2024, from a rocket launch center. It will be the next, fifth test campaign of the rocket, and the first to take place overseas. Polish Cosmic Agency is also taking part in the project.
- the owner and operator of the world’s largest SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) satellite constellation - and Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence 
signed a Memorandum of Cooperation. The Memorandum reinforces and specifies the cooperation between the company and Ukraine’s MOD, which has been developed since 2022. The Memorandum focuses on advancing remote sensing technology, improving data use for security, and supporting Ukraine’s integration into the global space economy.
