Russia successfully completes second Angara rocket launch
The new colonial movement: After many delays, Russia today successfully completed the second launch of its new Angara rocket, placing a dummy test payload into orbit.
The leaders in the 2020 launch race:
33 China
24 SpaceX
14 Russia
6 ULA
5 Rocket Lab
5 Europe (Arianespace)
The U.S. lead over China in the national rankings remains 38 to 33. With this launch the total launches in 2020 now matches that achieved last year, something achieved despite the Wuhan virus panic.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the 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. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
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.
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The new colonial movement: After many delays, Russia today successfully completed the second launch of its new Angara rocket, placing a dummy test payload into orbit.
The leaders in the 2020 launch race:
33 China
24 SpaceX
14 Russia
6 ULA
5 Rocket Lab
5 Europe (Arianespace)
The U.S. lead over China in the national rankings remains 38 to 33. With this launch the total launches in 2020 now matches that achieved last year, something achieved despite the Wuhan virus panic.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the 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. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
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.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five 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:
5. 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. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
I’m glad to see Angara launch again. It seems like a good capable launcher. Unfortunately it also seems to be expensive, I’m not sure how much of that is the incredibly low cadence and how much is baked in.
Russia comes up with some amazing plans and hardware designs, it’s a shame that there is zero chance of them being able to follow through on most of it.
Did they recover the first stage alright?
Oh… right…. expendable.
4 side boosters this time. I assume they managed to recover most of them right?
Oh ya, right.
Good way to up the RD-191 consumption rate. 5 per launch uses them up pretty quick.
It didn’t exactly put a Tesla in heliocentric orbit. But they are making inroads into the dummy payload market segment! They even simulated the concrete lump payload release before burning up in the atmosphere. 6 years delay after first test launch, that beats SLS by a decade at least!
@David Eastman wrote:
“Russia comes up with some amazing plans and hardware designs, it’s a shame that there is zero chance of them being able to follow through on most of it.”
Yeah, we’ve kinda seen that for 100 years now.
“national rankings remains 38 to 33” – how are U.S. numbers added up, plz?
Thx much.
Icepilot: The totals include other launches not included in the leader board above.
“Elon Musk Scoffs at Number of MBAs Running Corporate America”
“Elon Musk, Tesla and SpaceX CEO, said recently that there are too many business school grads — and not enough innovative entrepreneurs — who are running American companies.”
https://www.theblaze.com/news/elon-musk-mbas-running-corporate-america
Bingo! I started at Boeing right out of college and it was a mature industry run by MBAs, people who were skilled at and loved office politics… turf wars, building fiefdoms, and destroying other peoples’ careers and lives in battle. After a few years of that I moved to the tech world at a cellphone company just at the start of smart phones. The attitude was “Let’s build something cool!” Advances in smart phones were coming so fast that we couldn’t update the phone system fast enough.
Sadly now the tech world is a mature industry run by MBAs.
I just saw that there now is a Wikipedia page that details orbital launches per month, as well as other spaceflight events:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_in_spaceflight