LAVOCHKIN SCIENCE & PRODUCTION ASSOCIATION

The Lavochkin Science and Production Association owes its origin to a small-series aircraft factory set up in 1937. Twice this factory changed its specialization: first to rocketry and then to space technology. The best known Lavochkin planes are the La-5 and La-7 fighters developed during the war. In all, some 22,000 Lavochkin fighters were turned over to the Air Force during the war. These planes made up one-third of the Soviet fighter force. For over 30 years Lavochkin missiles, which formed an air defence ring, protected Moscow.

Today, the Lavochkin Association is Russia's only aerospace company which has, for more than 30 years, specialized in developing pilotless space vehicles - space robots, including automatic interplanetary stations, automatically-controlled spacecraft and extraterrestrial observatories. These space robots launched on numerous journeys to the Moon, Venus, Mars, Phobos, Halley comet have brought Russian scientists world fame as trail-blazers in outer space.

Owing to widespread conversion processes which affected the space industry, the Lavochkin Association produced various satellite communication systems and facilities for the remote probing of the Earth. Soon to be launched is a high-orbit space platform named "Arkon" and artificial Earth satellite "Coupon". Already tested and approved has been a multi-purpose booster "Fregat", which is expected to help solve the problem of turning the cosmodrome in Plesetsk into the main space port of Russia.

Since the early 1980s the Lavochkin Association has engaged in launching space vehicles of other countries on a commercial basis. It has placed into orbit around the Earth three Indian satellites and the very first satellites produced by Argentina and Mexico. The Association works in close cooperation with many scientific centres and industrial enterprises of Europe, Asia, America and Australia, in particular - with the European Space Agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration of the United States and the National Space Agency of France.