China Long March 2D launches “group of satellites”; Russia scrubs manned Soyuz launch
China today successfully launched what it simply labeled as “a group of satellites”, its Long March 2D rocket lifting off from its Jiuquan spaceport in the northwest of China.
No other useful information was released about the payloads. Nor was there any word as to the crash site of the rocket’s first stage, which uses toxic hypergolic fuels and landed somewhere in China.
Meanwhile in Russia a launch of a Soyuz-2 rocket carrying three astronauts to ISS was aborted at about T-20 seconds for reasons that as yet remain unclear. According to NASA the next launch opportunity is March 23, 2024.
The leaders in the 2024 launch race:
27 SpaceX
12 China
4 Rocket Lab
3 Russia
American private enterprise still leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 32 to 21, while SpaceX remains ahead of the entire world, including American companies, 27 to 26.
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China today successfully launched what it simply labeled as “a group of satellites”, its Long March 2D rocket lifting off from its Jiuquan spaceport in the northwest of China.
No other useful information was released about the payloads. Nor was there any word as to the crash site of the rocket’s first stage, which uses toxic hypergolic fuels and landed somewhere in China.
Meanwhile in Russia a launch of a Soyuz-2 rocket carrying three astronauts to ISS was aborted at about T-20 seconds for reasons that as yet remain unclear. According to NASA the next launch opportunity is March 23, 2024.
The leaders in the 2024 launch race:
27 SpaceX
12 China
4 Rocket Lab
3 Russia
American private enterprise still leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 32 to 21, while SpaceX remains ahead of the entire world, including American companies, 27 to 26.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
According to RIA Novosti, which is referring to Yuri Borisov, the launch was canceled due to a voltage draw down of a chemical power source. The crew is fine. The launch has been postponed to March 23, at 12.36 UTC.
https://twitter.com/katlinegrey/status/1770834065425354761
https://twitter.com/katlinegrey/status/1770839593664799197
As for the Long March 2D launch, the usual collectable panels falling off the rocket were available to fans if they could survive the N2O4/UDMH exhaust.