Russia launches three astronauts to ISS
Russia today successfully sent three new astronauts to ISS, its Soyuz-2 rocket lifting off from Baikonur in Kazakhstan.
Video of the launch here. Meanwhile, the rocket’s lower stages and strap-on boosters fell inside drop zones 300 to 1500 kilometers down range from Baikonur.
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
154 SpaceX
73 China
15 Rocket Lab
15 Russia
SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 154 to 124.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Russia today successfully sent three new astronauts to ISS, its Soyuz-2 rocket lifting off from Baikonur in Kazakhstan.
Video of the launch here. Meanwhile, the rocket’s lower stages and strap-on boosters fell inside drop zones 300 to 1500 kilometers down range from Baikonur.
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
154 SpaceX
73 China
15 Rocket Lab
15 Russia
SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 154 to 124.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News


The current Russia-Rocket Lab tie in launches is the one to watch for the remaining five weeks of this year. Russia has 9 more launches scheduled before New Year. Rocket Lab has 10. Both numbers sound a tad “aspirational,” but whichever can get closest to executing on its plan will be number three in launches, worldwide, for the year and the other will be number four.
If Rocket Lab proves the victor, that will put Russia behind not only the PRC but two individual American launch companies in the year-end rankings. By year-end 2027 it no longer looks improbable that Blue Origin and ULA could also join that list of Russia-beaters with Stoke, Firefly and perhaps even Relativity all in the contest to see which wind up as the fifth, sixth and seventh US companies to beat a Russian yearly launch total.