Russia launches classified satellite
Russia today successfully placed a classified military satellite into orbit, its Soyuz-2 rocket lifting off from its Plesetsk spaceport in northeast Russia.
The Russians provided extensive information about the places where the rocket’s lower stages and strap-on boosters would crash, issuing “warnings for the planned rocket boosters impacts between Yar Sale and Ports Yakha settlements, as well as in Panaevsk and Khadyta-Yakha sites.” These crash zones have been used previously. Though unlike China Russia routinely warns its people about such things, like China it has never had a problem dumping these stages on their head.
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
60 SpaceX
30 China
6 Rocket Lab
6 Russia
SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 60 to 49.
It is entertaining to see that the private American rocket company Rocket Lab is matching Russia launch for launch this year. Once Russia launched dozens of times per year. Now it will do well to achieve one launch per month. Rocket Lab meanwhile is trying to top twenty launches in 2025. It might not meet that number, but it is quite likely to top Russia when the year ends.
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Russia today successfully placed a classified military satellite into orbit, its Soyuz-2 rocket lifting off from its Plesetsk spaceport in northeast Russia.
The Russians provided extensive information about the places where the rocket’s lower stages and strap-on boosters would crash, issuing “warnings for the planned rocket boosters impacts between Yar Sale and Ports Yakha settlements, as well as in Panaevsk and Khadyta-Yakha sites.” These crash zones have been used previously. Though unlike China Russia routinely warns its people about such things, like China it has never had a problem dumping these stages on their head.
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
60 SpaceX
30 China
6 Rocket Lab
6 Russia
SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 60 to 49.
It is entertaining to see that the private American rocket company Rocket Lab is matching Russia launch for launch this year. Once Russia launched dozens of times per year. Now it will do well to achieve one launch per month. Rocket Lab meanwhile is trying to top twenty launches in 2025. It might not meet that number, but it is quite likely to top Russia when the year ends.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID 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. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
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.
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