News and Events (in Russian for the time being)

The exosphere of Mercury has little magnesium and contains helium. Some details about its structure are currently being revealed by the PHEBUS instrument aboard the BepiColombo interplanetary mission — an ultraviolet spectrometer developed with IKI participation. PHEBUS observed Mercury during several flybys and is now preparing to operate in scientific orbit, which it is to entere at the end of 2026. Papers on these preliminary results were published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets.

The State Commission has decided to conclude the flight tests of the two Ionosphere-M spacecraft and recommended the acceptance of the Ionozond space system into operation. The scientific payload has been tested and is ready for routine operations.

On May 15, 20205 IKI celebrates its birthday. The Institute was founded as a principal organisation for space research and exploration for fundamental science in the Academy of Sciences of the USSR under the Government Resolution from May 15, 1965 No. 392-147.

Anatoly Petrukovich, Director of IKI, discussed the problems of future space exploration at the plenary session 'Next Stop: The Moon and Beyond' on May 8, 2025, during the Global Space Exploration Conference — GLEX-2025, in New Delhi, India.

On May 10, 2025, Kosmos-482 satellite, a twin spacecraft of Venera-8 interplanetary mission, re-entered the Earth's atmosphere and fell into the Indian Ocean. It was launched in 1972, but remained in orbit around the Earth due to a malfunction of the upper stage. IKI scientistis give their comments on the event.

Dear colleagues, dear friends. We congratulate you on Victory Day of the Great Patriotic War!

From April 21 to 23, the XXII Conference of Young Scientists "Fundamental and Applied Space Research" took place at IKI.

On April 24, 2025, at the opening of 2025 Space Day of China, the project of the automatic lunar station Chang'E-8 was presented. Its scientific payload includes two instruments to be developed by the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences under the agreements between the Roscosmos State Corporation and the China National Space Administration (CNSA).

From December 2024 to April 2025 IKI showed some of the items of its museum at the exhibition "The Sun and the lIfe of the Earth" at Konstantin Tsiolkovsky State Museum of the History of Cosmonautics.

April 12, 2025, on the Cosmonautics Day, IKI opens its doors to everyone interested in space and science!