Dneprospetsstal: a metal born for flight

April 12 marks 60 years since the first manned flight into space. In honor of this event, the World Day of Aviation and Astronautics is celebrated today. Dneprospetsstal is directly related to the conquest of outer space.

OUR METAL IN SPACE

The steel smelted by the Zaporozhye metallurgists was used for the world's first artificial Earth satellite PS-1, the Vostok, Soyuz, Buran spacecraft, and the Energia launch vehicle.

- The name of our Enterprise indicates that the main purpose of the plant is to produce special steels and special alloys for critical industries, among which the space and aircraft industries occupy an important place, - says the head of the Technical Department Boris Levin. - In cooperation with research institutes, high-alloy steel grades and alloys were mastered and put into production at our plant. Many of them can be called unique.

Dneprospetsstal steel has the highest purity characteristics, the minimum content of non-metallic inclusions, excellent strength characteristics, heat resistance, high wear and corrosion resistance. These are the properties that apply to the metal used in the space industry.

The first work on the development of heat-resistant nickel-based alloys at Dneprospetsstal began in the early 50s of the last century. Then, in the late 50s, together with scientists from the Institute. E.O. Paton at the plant, the production of special steels was started by the methods of smelting ESR and VAR. This gave ample opportunities for the production of "space steel".

In the 80s, Dneprospetsstal carried out a huge amount of work to fulfill the "special order". On the basis of SPC-5 and the press-forging shop, the plant specialists, together with scientists, have done a tremendous amount of work on the development of the technological scheme, and then on the deformation redistribution of the new space metal. Then metallurgists themselves did not know about the true purpose of our products. In 1987, the metal produced at Dneprospetsstal was used for the production of the warhead and parts of the Energia launch vehicle.

The contribution of the Dniprospetsstal workers to the production of space metal was enormous. Evgeny Isaevich Moshkevich, Vladimir Dmitrievich Potapov, Leonid Naumovich Korol, Vladimir Makarovich Ivanchenko and other specialists worked on the implementation of the project.

Over the years, the metallurgists of Dneprospetsstal have mastered dozens of steel grades, which are still used for the space industry. Their production involves SPC-5, KPTs, rolling, thermal calibration shop and other divisions of the plant.

WINGED STEEL

Metal remains the most important material for modern aviation. Since 1915, which