MOSCOW (Roscosmos PR) — GK Launch Services (“GK”) and Innovative Space Logistics (“ISL”) have teamed up for launching CubeSats on GK’s first commercial SSO mission from Q2 2020 that will fly from Baikonur Cosmodrome.
The objective of this joint service is to address the need of the current CubeSat market for reliable launch solutions at a highly cost-effective pricepoint, supported by a team with unique experience.
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Soyuz launches three O3b satellites on April 4, 2019. (Credit: Arianespace)
KOUROU, French Guiana (Arianespace PR) — With a successful Soyuz launch that completed the first phase of SES’ O3b constellation, Arianespace today reaffirmed is ability to support the growing global market for such in-orbit satellite systems.
Lifting off mid-day from the Spaceport in French Guiana, the workhorse launch vehicle delivered the 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th O3b satellites into a circular orbit during a flight lasting 2 hours and 22 minutes until final separation. Total payload lift performance was estimated at 3,198 kg.
BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan (Roscosmos PR) — Today, February 21, 2019, from the Baikonur cosmodrome at 19:47 Moscow time, the launch vehicle Soyuz-2 with the Fregat accelerating unit (RB) and the satellite Egyptsat-A, created in the interests of the Arab Republic of Egypt, was launched. After the separation of the head unit from the third stage of the carrier rocket RB “Frigate” continued the removal of the spacecraft. The separation of the satellite […]
Soyuz launch from Vostochny Cosmodrome on Dec. 27, 2018. (Credit: Roscosmos)
MOSCOW (Roscosmos PR) — Today, on 27 December 2018, at 5:07 am Moscow time, Soyuz-2.1a carrier rocket with Fregat booster and Earth remote sensing (ERS) satellite vehicles №5 and №6 of the Kanopus-B series was successfully launched from the launch pad of the Vostochny Cosmodrome.
In accordance with the launch sequence, following two impulses of the service propulsion system of Fregat booster, satellite vehicle Kanopus-B №5 and satellite vehicle Kanopus-B №6 were routinely detached from the booster at 6:06 am and 6:12 am Moscow time respectively.
A Proton takes a nose dive at Baikonur. (Credit: Tsenki TV)
by Douglas Messier
Managing Edior
Over the past few years, I’ve been keeping track of Russia’s annual launch failures. For reasons I can’t quite recall, the table I’ve used only went back to 2009.
Recently, I saw a graphic on a Russian website about launch failures, and I realized I hadn’t gone back far enough. So, I dug into the records of the last 30 years from 1988 through 2017, which covers Russia and the last four years of the Soviet Union.
And holy crap! There were a helluva lot of them. Launch failures are not a bug in the system, they’re a feature.
UPDATE: SpaceX has scrubbed for the day due to the need to replace a sensor on the second stage. The next launch window is Wednesday, Jan. 31. __________ A SpaceX Falcon 9 launch scheduled for late this afternoon will kick off a busy period of international launches that will see the inaugural launch of the Falcon Heavy and China’s sixth orbital mission of 2018. SpaceX has four flights scheduled by […]
Russia successfully launched a Lotos electronic intelligence spy satellite aboard a Soyuz-2.1b booster on Saturday from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome. The flight came four days after the failure of a similar Soyuz-2.1b launched from the Vostochny Cosmodrome. The launch from Plesetsk did not use the Fregat upper stage blamed for the failure on Tuesday. Officials believe the Fregat upper stage was not properly programmed for a launch from Vostochny. The programming […]
Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin. (Credit: A. Savin)
Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin has bluntly declared that the Russian space industry is uncompetitive with its American counterparts except in the crucial area of rocket engine development.
The harsh comments by Rogozin, who oversees the space and defense sectors, come amid continued quality control problems that affected two recent launches and a review of Roscosmos ordered by President Vladimir Putin.
Rogozin was unusually candid in his negative assessment of his nation’s space program.
“Our space industry has fallen behind the Americans ninefold. All of our ambitious projects require us to up productivity 150 percent – and even if we manage that, we will still never catch up with them,” Rogozin originally said to Interfax Friday.
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UPDATE: TASS is reporting the primary payload, Kanopus ST, failed to separate from the upper stage. Efforts to correct the problem have reportedly failed. Russian media are reporting that one of two military satellites placed into orbit by a Soyuz 2-1v rocket has failed to separate from its Volga upper stage after launch on Saturday from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome. The Kanopus ST satellite includes sensors designed to track submarines, and […]
Europe’s Galileo constellation. Credits: ESA-J. Huart
Arianespace and ESA have issued an update on the launch anomaly that stranded two Galileo navigation satellites in the wrong orbits. The statement confirms that investigators are focused on an apparent problem with the Fregat upper stage of the Russian Soyuz ST launch vehicle.
The update provides no information about the fate of the satellites other than to say they are healthy and communicating with the ground. The European Commission has not issued an update since Friday, when it celebrated what it thought was a fully successful launch.
