Samara National Research University named after academician S.P. Korolev (Samara University) is one of the fastest-developing Russian institutions of higher education. Samara University has been listed among Russia’s 29 national research universities.  As of 2013, it has been included in the program for improving the competitiveness of Russian universities among the world’s top science-and-education centers (Project 5-100). It is aimed at unleashing the full scientific and educational potential of the best Russian universities on a global level.

The scientific and education activity of Samara University encompasses aerospace technologies, engine-building, and modern methods of information processing, as well as the fundamental technical and natural sciences and the humanities. 

Samara University since 1957 has been designing and building aerospace equipment, the strategic trend in research and training of specialists.

The university has formulated a world-class, unique research and educational complex, which involves the students directly in all stages of development, creation and testing of spacecraft.

The unique, distributed space laboratory with ground and space segments is based on:

• An operating orbital small-size spacecraft (SSC) group of the Aist series for research and educational purposes, created by the university with its strategic partner SRC Progress JSC. This group has been operating since 2013 and is part of the distributed space laboratory with ground and space segments. There are two first generation Aist SSC currently in orbit along with the Aist-2 Earth remote sensing SSC. All of these craft were created by the SRC Progress, with the active participation of scientists and students from Samara University.
• The SRC Progress has set up within the university a production and testing complex for high-tech production and development of Earth remote sensing (ERS) SSC, equipped with various types of special-purpose equipment.
• The Centre for Testing and Comprehensive Development of Nanosatellite Systems of the CubeSat 1U-3U standard and their subsystems is a group of laboratories resolving a broad set of tasks.
• The ground-control complex of SSC grouping of the Aist series (GCC SSC), which operates jointly with the Samara Data Acquisition and Processing Centre of the SRC Progress.  

After blasting off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on 19 April 2013, the Soyuz-2.1a rocket launched the Aist SSC into orbit as one of the payloads with the BION-M No. 1 satellite. The new light-class Soyuz-2.1v launched the injection unit Volga with second Aist SSC on 8 December 2013.

Aist-2D was launched on 28 April 2016 (during the first launch from the new Russian Vostochny Cosmodrome) with the Lomonosov satellite and the SamSat-218 nanosatellite, developed by the Samara students.

In June 2016, the leading research-and-education teams at Samara University were used as the basis for the formation of new interdisciplinary divisions – strategic academic units (SAU):

• “Aerospace Engineering and Technology” (SAU-1).
• “Gas-Turbine Engine-Building” (SAU-2).
• “Nanophotonics, Emerging Technologies for Remote Earth Observation and Smart Geo-Information Systems” (SAU-3).  

The university maintains active cooperation with major scientific and educational structures from different countries, shares laboratories with foreign scientific research universities, and pursues student exchange and double-diploma programs.