Lopota, Vitali Aleksandrovich

Chechen engineer. General Designer of TsNII-RTK from 1991 to 2007. General Designer of RKK Energia from 2007

Lopota graduated from Leningrad Polytechnic Institute in 1978. He founded a laboratory for the Ministry of Defence for laser and electron beam technology in 1984. From 1985 to 1991 he served as director of research at various defense enterprises. He was named Chief Designer of TsNII-RTK research institute in Saint Petersburg in 1991. TsNII-RTK was already deeply involved in space technology, being responsible for ranging systems for docking and soft landing for various spacecraft, and robot arms for Soviet space stations and the Buran shuttle. He oriented the institute even more strongly towards space work, notably the Yamal communications satellites and the application of beam technologies to ground-to-space ranging and characterization of satellites. Lopota was a member of the inner-circle of space technology chief designers, and had over 200 scientific papers and 50 patents to his credit. In 2007 Lopota was nominated by Kaskol, a minority shareholder of RKK Energia, to replace Sevastyanov as head of the company.