Comments on: Russia launches Progress freighter to ISS https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/russia-launches-progress-freighter-to-iss-8/ Fri, 04 Jul 2025 00:26:29 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 By: Dick Eagleson https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/russia-launches-progress-freighter-to-iss-8/#comment-1605705 Fri, 04 Jul 2025 00:26:29 +0000 https://behindtheblack.com/?p=115299#comment-1605705 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.

]]> By: Jeff Wright https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/russia-launches-progress-freighter-to-iss-8/#comment-1605648 Thu, 03 Jul 2025 22:16:27 +0000 https://behindtheblack.com/?p=115299#comment-1605648 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Outdated though it may be–can you imagine the Founders brought forward in time to see this?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.

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