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Russia launches Progress freighter to ISS

Russia today successfully launched a new Progress freighter to ISS using its Soyuz-2 rocket, bring almost three tons of supplies to the station..

The 2021 launch race:

4 SpaceX
3 China
2 Russia
1 Rocket Lab
1 Virgin Orbit

The U.S. still leads China 6 to 3 in the national rankings. That lead should widen this week with three American launches scheduled, two Starlink launches from SpaceX and one Cygnus freighter from Northrop Grumman.

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.


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"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

4 comments

  • LocalFluff

    I’ll try to keep track of capacity per country launched during 2021. I’ll note capacity due to launcher failures too (with a minus instead of a plus sign, not affecting national total launch success).

    As according to Wikipedia max capacity to LEO per rocket type (however LEO is defined, could be a short lived 200 km altitude, less than half the altitude of the ISS that needs yearly boosting to survive atmospheric drag). This simple method at least compares how much they COULD HAVE put in LEO (however it is defined, at lest one could adjust these numbers afterwards if someone knows a fair way to do that) And I of course use metric units, no body parts whether short nor long.

    Until and including February 15th 2021:

    WORLD 134,440 kg
    USA 92,000 kg 68%
    CHINA 27,200 kg 20%
    RUSSIA 15,220 kg 11%

    USA 92,000 kg
    SpaceX (91,200 kg)
    + 4 of Falcon 9 Block 5 = 22,800 kg each
    Rocket Lab (300 kg)
    + 1 of Electron = 300 kg each
    Virgin Galactic (500 kg)
    + 1 LauncherOne = 500 kg as to SSO230km each

    CHINA 27,200 kg
    + 2 of Long March 3B/E = 11,500 kg each
    + 1 of Long March 4C = 4,200 kg each
    – 1 Hyperbola 1 = 300 kg LAUNCH FAILURE

    RUSSIA 15,220 kg
    + 1 of Soyuz 2.1a = 7,020 kg each
    + 1 of Soyuz 2.1b = 8,200 kg each

    Wikipedia’s list of launches in 2021:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight_launches_in_January%E2%80%93June_2021

  • LocalFluff: Thank you for this additional parameter. If you can add it to each of my launch race posts both I and my readers will be very grateful.

  • LocalFluff

    Small sat launchers represent 0.6% of world total mass capacity to LEO.

  • LocalFluff

    Yes, I intend to update it for precisely that purpose. Exclusively for your blog :-) Although I might miss a few of your updates.

    Please come with feedback for improvements! I’ll add number of first stages reused and pro forma tonnage for that. Since it is different for reused and expended F9s and I will gladly make reasonable adjustments from the simple Wikipedia numbers for LEO capacity that I start out with now.

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