Tag: Rockot

Rockot launches three communications satellites

8:53 am

The last Russian Rockot this morning successfully placed three communications satellites and a cubesat into orbit.

The Russians are abandoning Rockot, a repurposed ballistic missile, because it uses Ukrainian hardware.

The leaders in the 2019 launch race:

32 China
22 Russia
13 SpaceX
8 Arianespace (Europe)

China still leads the U.S. 32 to 27 in the national rankings. At this moment no other launches are scheduled for 2019, though an unannounced military launch could still happen.

Leave a comment

Russia’s Rockot launches military geodesic satellite

8:51 am

Russia today used its re-purposed ballistic missile, Rockot, to launch the second in a two-satellite constellation of military geodesic satellites, designed to more accurately map the Earth’s gravitational field.

This launch puts Russia in the lead in the annual race for most launches for the first time since 2018. It also gives them more launches for the year than they had predicted. Both facts demonstrate that their launch industry is showing a recovery from the problems experienced in 2016, when they discovered corruption in one of their main rocket engine companies, requiring the recall of all engines.

The leaders in the 2019 launch race:

14 Russia
13 China
10 SpaceX
6 Europe (Arianespace)
4 India
4 Rocket Lab
4 ULA

The U.S. still leads Russia in the national rankings, 19 to 14.

Leave a comment

Russia’s Rockot launches ESA Earth resource satellite

8:33 am

Despite numerous political issues, including opposition from Canadian Inuit officials, Russia’s re-purposed ICBM Rockot today successfully launched a European Earth resource satellite.

The other problems were related to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, since the avionics for the rocket were made by a Ukrainian company.

I must add that this launch puts Russia ahead of SpaceX once again in the race to launch the most in 2017, 16 to 15.

One comment