UST: News

A model of SkyWay transport was displayed (in Russian) at the exhibition "Building a house" that takes place in Gomel these days. Our partners from "BelTransNet Mogilev" presented the technology. They described to Gomel residents the benefits of SkyWay transport and the markets, to which the Belarusian high-tech products will go.

This event, seemingly an ordinary one, is, in fact, very symbolic for SkyWay technologies. Here is why. What is Gomel famous for? It is one of the largest Belarusian industrial centers with a large number of technical Universities. This is a historic city - the patrimony of the Rumyantsevs and the Paskeviches. Natives of this city are famous musicians, actors, scientists, entrepreneurs. Moreover, this is the birthplace of Anatoly Yunitskiy. In Gomel, he began his work on the idea of string transport and General Planetary Vehicle (GPV).

The locals know Anatoly for a long time - even during his service in the army a local newspaper wrote about him. Private Yunitskiy distinguished himself in political and combat training even managing to continue at the same time the research work started back on the block. For this, he was awarded a month's leave after 10 months of service. Just the travel from the duty station in the Far East and back took 2 weeks. It was the year 1975.

After the army service, Anatoly Yunitskiy's life has been associated for a long time with city of Gomel where he worked in road building trust No. 2, the Patent Bureau at the Institute of mechanics for metal polymer systems under the Belorussian Academy of Sciences, the production Association "Korall". In parallel, Anatoly Yunitskiy continued his education: he received a diploma in the second specialty - "Patent law and invention" in 1985. The first Anatoly Yunitskiy's education was "Railways Engineer".

In 1986, Anatoly Yunitskiy became a member of the USSR Federation of cosmonautics with the project of a non-rocket vehicle for exit into space, which is based on string technologies. Since then, he began to promote actively the ideas of non-rocket space exploration and the concept of string transport at various conferences.

In April 1988, together with the USSR Federation of cosmonautics and the all-Union society "Znanie" ("Knowledge") Yunitskiy prepared and held in Gomel the first scientific and practical conference in the USSR on the problems of non-rocket space exploration "Non-rocket industrialization of space: problems, ideas, projects". The guests of the conference were famous cosmonauts - twice Hero of the Soviet Union Yury Malyshev and Hero of the Soviet Union Igor Volk. Anatoly Yunitskiy substantiated the conditions determining the industrialization of space as an inevitable stage in the development of civilization in his report entitled "Principles to create an optimal transport system for industrial exploration of near-Earth outer space".

Poster on GPV with the autograph of the pilot-cosmonaut, Hero of the Soviet Union Igor Volk, December 1988

As a result of the conference Anatoly Yunitskiy managed to get support from the USSR Federation of cosmonautics to create a new organization; it was called the center "Star World". Based on the center, Anatoly Yunitskiy has created a scientific organization that was of new type for USSR perestroika. That's what he tells about it in an interview to "Gomelskaya Pravda": "Almost every large enterprise or institution has a sufficient reserve of orders or developments that they cannot cope with on their own due to the lack of specialists of the desired profile or the relevant material and technical base. However, sectoral research Institutes and Design Bureaus are strained with other work or do not wish to undertake a trifle. On the other hand, thousands of young scientists and engineers cannot realize their expertise and skills. A low salary sometimes makes them go to work part-time as janitors and guards. Can we consider this situation normal today, in the era of perestroika? No. That is why the "Star World" center has become a mediator between people who want to use their abilities and organizations that need to conduct scientific research and technological work". Thus, such an outsourcing Company appeared in 1988!

The "Star World" center worked quite successfully: its clients included major industrial enterprises of Gomel region, such as "Tsentrolit", "Giprozhivmash", "Khimvolokno". There were also customers from Leningrad and other great industrial centers of the USSR. However, the main center's objective was to promote the idea of non-rocket space exploration. To do this, it developed scientific programs, conducted lectures on astronomy and cosmonautics, set up campaigns to attract young people to scientific and technical creativity.

In the 90s, Anatoly Yunitskiy's business gradually moved to Russia, where the first practical tests with string tracks and rolling stock designs were carried out. Then there was a testing site in Ozyory, development of ideas, search of investors, acquiring of business contacts and, of course, SkyWay Technologies Co. Today you can see everything yourself. At the test site in Maryina Gorka, at international exhibitions, at the production facility and design bureaus: everywhere you can see the impressive progress of ideas and thoughts, the birthplace of which is the Belarusian city of Gomel.

Nowadays, SkyWay technologies do not lose touch with their small homeland: in November 2017, SkyWay EcoTechnoPark was visited by a delegation of the country's leading Universities training specialists in the transport sector including representatives from the Belarusian State University of Transport - the leading Gomel Technical University. In addition to the teaching staff, their delegation included students taking an active part in the research activities of Universities. Anatoly Yunitskiy has delivered a lecture on optimal transport to young engineers. He spoke about the aerodynamics of high-speed vehicles, energy efficiency of transport, material intensity of highways, transport problems of modern cities, the problem of transport affordability, as well as many other aspects.