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Russia launches another 36 OneWeb satellites

A Russian Soyuz-2 rocket today successfully launched 36 more OneWeb satellites, raising the total of the satellite constellation in orbit to 358.

The launch was from Russia’s new spaceport Vostochny. As with all launches from Russia, the expendable first stage core and strap-ons landed inside Russia within designated drop zones. And as usual, no word from Russia on whether they landed on anyone’s head.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

34 China
23 SpaceX
17 Russia
4 Northrop Grumman

The U.S. still leads China in the national rankings, 35 to 34. With launches scheduled by both countries (two by the U.S. and one by China) over the next three days, these numbers will continue upward.

Genesis cover

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 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

3 comments

  • Mark

    A few days ago Edward made a very good observation “This is the middle of the end of the Soviet space program. The beginning of the end came when it was nationalized (centralized) in 2013.”
    And for those who didn’t see it, I’ll repeat my statement from Oct 11th that “there was the economic stagnations from 2013, after the oil-model was exhausted, where Putin’s Decrees and the 12 national projects were an attempt to create a new economic model driven by supply-side investment. The sector of the economy that is the economic and foreign policy backbone of the Putin regime is the Oil & Gas sector. And the company that Putin cares about the most about is Rosneft which is the Russian state-owned oil company.
    Post COVID we are seeing Putin once again derive great benefit from Russian Oil & Gas which increases state revenues, and can be used by Russia as a carrot and stick to drive its foreign policy goals with Europe and Ukraine.
    So I would contrast the Russian Oil & Gas giant Rosneft to Roscosmos, and do it from Putin’s perspective. It’s easy to see which one is more important to the Russian state, and which one you would invest in, and which one you would cut 16% from its budget.”

  • Col Beausabre

    Modern Russia has been described as a gas station with an army

  • Mark

    Col B. – that gave me chuckle.
    While Russia may be a gas station with an army, and while most countries have an army, I am much more concerned about Pakistan where it has been said that the Army and its Security apparatus have a country.

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