Russia launches Progress freighter to ISS
Russia today (July 4th in Kazakhstan) successfully launched a new Progress freighter to ISS, its Soyuz-2 rocket lifting off from the Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan.
The freighter will dock to ISS in two days, bringing with it almost three tons of cargo and more than a half done of hardware and equipment. Expect NASA to order its astronauts to shut the hatch between the American and Russian sections of ISS due its fear that a docking to the Zvezda module could cause a catastrophic failure because of the stress fractures in that module’s hull. That docking will however not be directly to Zvezda, but to the Poisk module that is itself docked to Zvezda.
The lower stages and strap-on boosters crashed inside Kazakhstan in the normal drop zones that Russia has used for decades.
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
84 SpaceX
36 China
10 Rocket Lab
8 Russia
SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 84 to 63.
Russia’s launch pace this year is its lowest pace in decades. At this rate Russia might only get about 15-17 launches off in 2025, a count more comparable to what it did in the very early 1960s. This decline can be directly linked to the Russian invasion of the Ukraine. That invasion caused Russia to lose billions in contracts in the international launch market. And it continues to prevent Russia from winning any new international contracts as well. Except for its government launches (which are limited due to government cash shortages), the only other missions Russia flies are those to ISS, and those number about four per year.
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 (July 4th in Kazakhstan) successfully launched a new Progress freighter to ISS, its Soyuz-2 rocket lifting off from the Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan.
The freighter will dock to ISS in two days, bringing with it almost three tons of cargo and more than a half done of hardware and equipment. Expect NASA to order its astronauts to shut the hatch between the American and Russian sections of ISS due its fear that a docking to the Zvezda module could cause a catastrophic failure because of the stress fractures in that module’s hull. That docking will however not be directly to Zvezda, but to the Poisk module that is itself docked to Zvezda.
The lower stages and strap-on boosters crashed inside Kazakhstan in the normal drop zones that Russia has used for decades.
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
84 SpaceX
36 China
10 Rocket Lab
8 Russia
SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 84 to 63.
Russia’s launch pace this year is its lowest pace in decades. At this rate Russia might only get about 15-17 launches off in 2025, a count more comparable to what it did in the very early 1960s. This decline can be directly linked to the Russian invasion of the Ukraine. That invasion caused Russia to lose billions in contracts in the international launch market. And it continues to prevent Russia from winning any new international contracts as well. Except for its government launches (which are limited due to government cash shortages), the only other missions Russia flies are those to ISS, and those number about four per year.
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
Well–they get the award for July 4th’s biggest rocket…
Outdated though it may be–can you imagine the Founders brought forward in time to see this?
Not just R-7, but the petal pad arms that just fall away as thrust-to-weight reached unity.
Only Saturn V put on more spectacle.
The neatest thing, visually, about an R-7 launch is not the liftoff but the Korolev Cross formed when the side boosters are simultaneously jettisoned.
All launches of large rockets are pretty impressive. If your favored metric is brightness and flame, rockets with SRBs pretty much lead the league. Ariane 5s, Space Shuttles and the SLS are particularly impressive in this way. Starship is impressive for sheer scale and for the several-hundred-foot-long methalox plume with its huge composite shock diamonds. New Glenn was pretty darned impressive too on its initial outing.