page_title: Antonov
section_title: Late Soviet-era: superlarge projects and first commercialisation
hierarchical_section_title: Antonov / History / Soviet era / Late Soviet-era: superlarge projects and first commercialisation
caption_attribution_description: English: Portuguese and American workers tend to the Antonov An-225 Mriya, or "Dream", April 28 on the flightline at Lajes Field, Azores. The aircraft landed here to refuel and get serviced. Currently the world's largest aircraft, the An-225 was designed mainly to transport the Russian space shuttle and its components from a service area to a launch site.
context_page_description: Antonov State Enterprise, formerly the Aeronautical Scientific-Technical Complex named Antonov, and earlier the Antonov Design Bureau, is a Ukrainian aircraft manufacturing and services company. Antonov's particular expertise is in the fields of very large aeroplanes and aeroplanes using unprepared runways. Antonov has built a total of approximately 22,000 aircraft, and thousands of its planes are currently operating in the former Soviet Union and in developing countries.
  Antonov StC is a state-owned commercial company. Its headquarters and main industrial grounds were originally located in Novosibirsk, and were later transferred to Kiev. On 12 May 2015 it was transferred from the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade to the Ukroboronprom.
  In June 2016, Ukraine's major state-owned arms manufacturer Ukroboronprom announced the creation of the Ukrainian Aircraft Corporation within its structure, to combine all aircraft manufacturing enterprises in Ukraine.
context_section_description: In the late 1980s, the Antonov Bureau achieved global prominence after the introduction of its extra large aeroplanes. The An-124 "Ruslan" (1982) became the Soviet Union's mass-produced strategic airlifter under the leadership of Chief Designer Viktor Tolmachev. The Bureau enlarged the "Ruslan" design even more for the Soviet space shuttle programme logistics, creating the An-225 "Mriya" in 1989. "Mriya" is still the world's largest and heaviest aeroplane.
  The end of the Cold War and perestroika allowed the Antonov company's first step to commercialisation and foreign expansion. In 1989, the Antonov Airlines subsidiary was created for its own aircraft maintenance and cargo projects.
caption: An-225 is the largest operating aircraft in the world.
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