OREANDA-NEWS. May 03, 2011. Before meeting with the company's trade union activists, Vladimir Putin familiarised himself with the work of the research institute.

Director General of the research institute Alexei Dmitriyenko told the Prime Minister that the institute has experience of successful cooperation with the space agencies of India and China, as well as the European Space Agency, and is participating in the configuration of instrumentation for the Russian rocket engine RD-180 used in the first stage of the Atlas rocket family (USA).

Mr Dmitriyenko said that the institute has developed more than 850 engineering designs used in national and international space programmes.

The research institute is also developing equipment for the nuclear industry, including safety control systems for nuclear reactors at nuclear power stations, including foreign ones.

Vladimir Putin enquired about how much modern equipment is used at the research institute. Mr Dmitriyenko told Mr Putin that 50% of the equipment has been updated in the past two to three years. Mr Dmitriyenko said that the institute is among the multi-million-rouble companies in the Penza Region and is able to address many of its socio-economic issues on its own.