The Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, the National Technical University of Ukraine, salutes the great achievement by NASA engineers and scientists who successfully flew Ingenuity, the first helicopter drone, in the thin atmosphere from the surface of Mars today. NASA’s achievement follows the path pioneered approximately 110 years ago by Igor Sikorsky who performed some of his early aviation developments for helicopter flight while a student in 1907 -1911 at Kyiv Polytechnic Institute in Kyiv, Ukraine. In 1919, Sikorski emigrated first to France and then to the United States to continue developing and developing aircraft. He flew the first practical helicopter in 1929 and the first commercial design was produced in 1939. We at KPI salute him for his early developments while he was studying at KPI. To honor Igor Sikorsky’s pioneering work and spirit in 2016 KPI was renamed in his honor as the ‘Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute’ (KPI).
As Igor Sikorsky himself would have done, we take off our hat to the breakthrough work of NASA engineers and scientists! SIKORSKY Kyiv Polytechnic Institute SALUTES YOU!