  The DANSS project is aimed at creating a relatively compact neutrino
spectrometer which does not contain any flammable or other dangerous liquids
and may therefore be located very close to the core of an industrial power
reactor. As a result, it is expected that high neutrino flux would provide
about 15,000 IBD interactions per day in the detector with a sensitive volume
of 1 m$^3$. High segmentation of the plastic scintillator will allow to
suppress a background down to a 1% level. Numerous tests performed with a
simplified pilot prototype DANSSino under a 3 GW$_{th}$ reactor of the Kalinin
NPP have demonstrated operability of the chosen design. The DANSS detector
surrounded with a composite shield is movable by means of a special lifting
gear, varying the distance to the reactor core in a range from 10 m to 12 m.
Due to this feature, it could be used not only for the reactor monitoring, but
also for fundamental research including short-range neutrino oscillations to
the sterile state. Supposing one-year measurement, the sensitivity to the
oscillation parameters is expected to reach a level of $sin^2(2\theta)$ ~ 0.005
with $\Delta m^2 \subset (0.02-5.0)$ eV$^2$.
