Tag: Soyuz 2

Russian Soyuz-2 rocket launches 36 OneWeb satellites

9:42 am

Capitalism in space: A Russian Soyuz-2 rocket today launched another 36 OneWeb satellites into orbit, lifting off from Russia’s Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan.

This year, a total of five OneWeb missions were launched from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in eastern Russia, and another two launched from Baikonur. Vostochny is the newest cosmodrome for Russia, while Baikonur is the oldest and originated from the Soviet era.

There was also one launch from French Guiana.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

50 China
31 SpaceX
23 Russia
7 Europe (Arianespace)

This was the 132nd successful launch this year, which now ties 2021 with 1975 as the most active year in rocketry since Sputnik. With a possible launches from China (Long March 3B) and Russia (a tentatively scheduled test launch of its Angara rocket today), there is a good chance 2021 will become the most active year ever.

Most important, this activity is only a precursor. Next year should see even more activity.

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Russia launches two tourists to ISS

8:25 am

Capitalism in space: Using its Soyuz-2 rocket and Soyuz capsule, Russia today successfully launched two tourists to ISS.

Onboard the Soyuz is Yusaku Maezawa, a Japanese billionaire known for starting online businesses Start Today and Zozo. In addition to his Soyuz mission, he has a circumlunar flight aboard SpaceX’s Starship—called “dearMoon”—booked for no earlier than 2023. Maezawa purchased both available seats on this flight of Soyuz. He [is] joined by Yozo Hirano—a media producer from Zozo—who will document the MS-20 mission. This flight will mark the first time two Japanese astronauts fly together, as well as the first flight of any Japanese space tourist.

The mission is commanded by experienced Russian cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin, on what is his third spaceflight. During the mission, he will stand ready to pilot the Soyuz in case the automated guidance software fails.

The Russians claim that this is their first tourist flight to ISS since 2009, but that makes believe the two filmmakers launched to ISS in October were not paying passengers. They might have been working on ISS, and not merely tourists, but they were not professional astronauts but paying customers.

This flight however is the first organized with Russia by the American company Space Adventures since 2009, ending that long gap caused almost entirely because all Soyuz seats since then had been bought by NASA to replace the shuttle. With manned Dragon flights available, the Russians and Space Adventures can sell tickets again.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

46 China
27 SpaceX
21 Russia
6 Europe (Arianespace)
5 ULA

China still leads the U.S. 46 to 43 in the national rankings. With SpaceX and Rocket Lab launches set for later tonight, these numbers should rise again.

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Arianespace launches two Galileo GPS-type satellites

8:14 pm

Capitalism in space: Using a Russian Soyuz-2 rocket, Arianespace successfully launched two Galileo GPS-type satellites from its spaceport in French Guiana tonight.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

45 China
27 SpaceX
20 Russia
6 Europe (Arianespace)

China still leads the U.S. 45 to 42 in the national rankings. This launch tonight was 116th successful launch in 2021, which is the most launches completed in a year since 1988. Based on the number of planned launched over the next three weeks, there is an outside chance that the global total will top 127, making this the second most active year ever in the history of space. Even if the numbers end up in the mid-120s, 2021 will be among the top eight years ever.

And I expect next year to easily top this year.

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Russians set December 8th for launch of next ISS tourist flight

10:17 am

Capitalism in space: Roscosmos today announced that the next tourist flight to ISS of two Japanese tourists will launch on December 8th.

“According to the Russian plan of ISS flight, the Soyuz-2.1A rocket carrying the Soyuz MS-20 transport spaceship with the 20th visiting ISS expedition on board is scheduled to lift off from the Baikonur cosmodrome at 10:38 am Moscow time [07:38 GMT] on December 8, 2021,” the agency said.

The crew will include Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin and two Japanese space tourists – billionaire Yusaku Maezawa and his assistant Yozo Hirano

Maezawa is also the man who has signed a deal with SpaceX to fly to the Moon on Starship, once that spacecraft is finished.

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Russia successfully launches Progress with new docking hub for ISS

9:15 am

Russia today successfully launched a new Progress freighter carrying Prichal, a new docking hub for the Russian half of ISS.

If all goes as planned, Prichal will dock to Nauka in two days.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

43 China
26 SpaceX
19 Russia
5 Europe (Arianespace)

China still leads the U.S. 43 to 41 in the national rankings. This launch was the 111th successful launch in 2021, which tied the number from 2018 that had been the highest since the 1990s.

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Russia launches Progress freighter to ISS

9:54 pm

Using its Soyuz-2 rocket, Russia today successfully launched a Progress freighter to ISS, carrying more than 5,000 pounds of cargo.

The freighter is scheduled to dock with ISS Friday evening at 9:34 pm (Eastern). It will dock with the port on the 20-year-old Zvezda module, which has remained unused for the past six months because of concerns that the docking and undocking at the port was causing stress fractures in the sections of Zvezda closest to the port. The Russians have decided to do this docking for the express purpose of studying its impact on the module.

The Progress MS-18 spacecraft will link up with the rear docking port on Zvezda. With the help of cosmonauts on the station, Russian engineers have traced a small air leak on the station to the transfer compartment leading to Zvezda’s rear port. The compartment has been sealed from the rest of the space station since the departure of a previous Progress spacecraft from the rear docking port in April. But cosmonauts will re-open the compartment to unload cargo delivered by the Progress MS-18 spacecraft.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

38 China
23 SpaceX
18 Russia
4 Northrop Grumman
4 ULA
4 Arianespace (Europe)

China remains ahead of the U.S. 38 to 36 in the national rankings.

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Russia launches another 36 OneWeb satellites

8:37 am

A Russian Soyuz-2 rocket today successfully launched 36 more OneWeb satellites, raising the total of the satellite constellation in orbit to 358.

The launch was from Russia’s new spaceport Vostochny. As with all launches from Russia, the expendable first stage core and strap-ons landed inside Russia within designated drop zones. And as usual, no word from Russia on whether they landed on anyone’s head.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

34 China
23 SpaceX
17 Russia
4 Northrop Grumman

The U.S. still leads China in the national rankings, 35 to 34. With launches scheduled by both countries (two by the U.S. and one by China) over the next three days, these numbers will continue upward.

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Russia launches movie director and actor to ISS

8:40 am

Capitalism in space: Early today Russia successfully used its Soyuz-2 rocket and Soyuz capsule to launch a movie crew to ISS to begin a twelve day visit where they will film scenes for a science fiction movie.

An actress Yulia Peresild and a movie director Klim Shipenko arrived at the International Space Station aboard the Soyuz MS-19 spacecraft on Oct. 5, 2021, for a 12-day visit to shoot scenes of a sci-fi drama. They were accompanied by a professional cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov, who had to switch to manual control during the final approach to the station due to a failure of the Kurs automated rendezvous system aboard Soyuz. Shkaplerov will remain aboard the station for nearly six months.

This is the second in a steady string of passenger commercial spaceflights that have been purchased by various people from either Roscosmos in Russia or SpaceX in the U.S. We shall see two more such flights in December, and another early in ’22, with additional flights to be scheduled beyond that. The full list, at this time:

  • September 15, 2021: SpaceX’s Dragon capsule flew four private citizens on a three day orbital flight
  • October 2021: The Russians launch two passengers to ISS for 12 days to shoot a movie
  • December 2021: The Russians will fly billionaire Yusaku Maezawa and his assistant to ISS for 12 days
  • cDecember 2021: Space Adventures, using a Dragon capsule, will fly four in orbit for five days
  • January/February 2022: Axiom, using a Dragon capsule, will fly four tourists to ISS
  • 2022-2024: Three more Axiom tourist flights on Dragon to ISS
  • 2024: Axiom begins launching its own modules to ISS, starting construction of its own private space station
  • c2024: SpaceX’s Starship takes Yusaku Maezawa and several others on a journey around the Moon.

Expect this list to grow. There appears to be plenty of demand for such commercial manned spaceflights, and with more flights and more competition (once Boeing’s Starliner enters the game) the cost will certainly drop.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

34 China
23 SpaceX
16 Russia
4 Northrop Grumman

With this launch Russia has now exceeded the number of launches it completed last year. If they complete all their presently scheduled launches for ’21, Roscosmos will have its best year since 2015.

The U.S still leads China 35 to 34 in the national rankings.

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Russia launches another set of OneWeb satellites

2:03 pm

Using its Soyuz-2 rocket Russia today successfully launched another 34 OneWeb satellites, launching from Baikonur, Kazakhstan.

At the time of publication about half the satellites have successfully deployed. The rest should be released within the next hour or so.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

31 China
22 SpaceX
15 Russia
4 Northrop Grumman

With this launch Russia has now matched its total launches from last year, with three months still to go and a number of launches in ’21 on its manifest. For Russia’s launch industry, 2021 looks like it will be a good year.

The U.S. continues to lead China 33 to 31 in the national rankings.

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Launches by China and Russia

8:43 am

Both Russia and China successfully completed launches yesterday. Russia launched a military reconnaissance satellite using its Soyuz-2 rocket. China in turn launched a communications satellite using its Long March 3B rocket.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

31 China
21 SpaceX
14 Russia
4 Northrop Grumman

The U.S. still leads China 32 to 31 in the national rankings.

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Russia launches another 34 OneWeb satellites

12:38 am

Russia today put another 34 OneWeb satellites into orbit, using its Soyuz-2 rocket.

OneWeb now has 288 satellites in orbit, out of the planned 648. At present the constellation is able to provide service to customers in latitudes north of 50 degrees. Though SpaceX’s Starlink constellation is also offering service to customers in the same northern latitudes, the two companies service different customer bases, with OneWeb aimed at big business and government operations and Starlink aimed at individual residential customers.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

27 China
20 SpaceX
13 Russia
4 Northrop Grumman.

The U.S. still leads China 31 to 27 in the national rankings.

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Russia: Progress freighter and SpaceX rocket/satellite to have near miss

9:00 am

According to a Russia news outlet, their just launched Progress freighter will have a near miss today prior to its docking with ISS with two SpaceX objects, a Falcon 9 upper stage and a decommissioned Starlink satellite.

The Progress spacecraft, which carries about 3,600 lbs. (1,633 kilograms) of cargo including food, fuel and other supplies to the orbital outpost, launched from Roscomos’ Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 7:27 p.m. EDT (2327 GMT) on Tuesday (June 29). Progress 78 will approach the two objects about three and a half hours before its docking at the International Space Station, which is scheduled for 9:02 p.m. EDT on July 1 (0102 July 2 GMT).

The close approach, which triggered a potential collision alert, was detected by the Roscosmos TsNIIMash Main Information and Analytical Center of the Automated System for Warning of Hazardous Situations in Near-Earth Space (ASPOS OKP), Roscosmos said in the statement issued on the space agency’s website Wednesday (June 30) at 7:47 a.m. EDT (1147 GMT).

Based on preliminary calculations, the Starlink 1691 satellite will be just 0.9 miles (1.5 kilometers) away from Progress 78 on Thursday (July 1) at 5:32 p.m. EDT (2132 GMT). Three minutes later, a fragment of a Falcon 9 rocket booster left in orbit in 2020 is expected to approach the spaceship within 0.3 miles (500 meters).

Based on that timetable, the near miss has already occurred. No word yet on whether there were any issues.

What is interesting is that Russia should have known this prior to launch. It is routine procedure to consider known orbital objects in scheduling liftoffs. Either they knew and decided to purposely fly this close for political reasons (it allows them to slam SpaceX while also touting the dangers of space junk) or had not done their due diligence before launch.

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Russians launch Progress freighter; Virgin Orbit launches seven commercial satellites

9:04 am

This morning two launches occurred. First the Russians successfully launched a Progress freighter to ISS, using their Soyuz-2 rocket.

Second, Virgin Orbit successfully completed its second orbital launch with its air-launched LauncherOne rocket, which was its first operational commercial launch, placing seven smallsats into orbit for three customers. This was also its second launch in 2021.

If all goes as planned, SpaceX will complete a third launch today also, placing more than 80 smallsats in orbit with its Falcon 9 rocket. Until then, however, the leaders in the 2021 launch race are as follows:

19 SpaceX
18 China
10 Russia
3 Northrop Grumman

The U.S. now leads China 28-18 in the national rankings.

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Eutelsat invests $550 million in OneWeb

9:22 am

Capitalism in space: The long established European communications satellite company Eutelsat has committed $550 million in investment capital in OneWeb and its internet satellite constellation.

Eutelsat, one of the world’s leading satellite operators, will receive a c.24% equity stake in OneWeb and similar governance rights to the U.K. Government and Bharti Global, making it a significant equity partner and joining leading investors including the U.K. Government, Bharti Global and SoftBank. The investment is expected to be completed in the second half of 2021, subject to regulatory approvals.

This investment raises OneWeb’s total funding to $1.9 billion, and puts it in a good position to complete its 648 satellite constellation on schedule, with the first commercial operations beginning when the total in orbit tops 250 in July, after the next two Soyuz-2 launches.

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Soyuz-2 rocket launches 36 more OneWeb satellites

8:53 pm

Capitalism in space: Russia’s Soyuz-2 rocket today successfully launched from its Vostochny spaceport another 36 more OneWeb satellites, raising that internet constellation to 182 satellites of a planned 650 satellites.

The constellation will take 20 Soyuz launches to finish, and like other competitor services such as Starlink, is designed to provide high speed, low latency broadband services to areas where such service is unavailable now. Whereas Starlink is being marketed to individuals, OneWeb’s services are designed for enterprise customers, including broadband providers. User terminals can enable 3G, LTE, 5G, and Wi-Fi service over land, sea, and air.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

11 SpaceX
8 China
7 Russia
2 Rocket Lab

The U.S. still leads China 15 to 8 in the national rankings. And these numbers will likely see some change as there are four launches scheduled in the next four days. First ULA’s Delta 4 Heavy will launch a spy satellite tomorrow, then the next day Arianespace will do its first launch this year, launching a commercial Airbus Earth observation satellite with a Vega rocket.

On April 28 SpaceX plans to launch another 60 Starlink satellites, followed on April 29th by the launch by China of the first module of its space station, using their Long March 5B rocket.

Things are heating up, and this is only the beginning.

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Soyuz-2 launches three astronauts to ISS

9:08 am

Russia today successfully used its Soyuz-2 rocket to launch three astronauts to ISS.

Because this flight is occurring three days before the 60th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s first human flight in space, the Russians gave the Soyuz capsule his name to honor him and the event. The spacecraft docked with ISS only two orbits later.

The crew also included an American, Mark Vande Hei, who is flying as part of the new barter agreement with Russia, whereby Americans fly in Soyuz in exchange for Russians flying in American commercial capsule. This was the first time NASA paid nothing for a flight on Soyuz since the shuttle retired a decade ago.

The return to Earth of Vande Hei and his fellow crew member Pyotr Dubrov will be on the next Soyuz capsule to launch in October, MS-19, in order to accommodate a short visit by a Russian movie director and actress.

Roscosmos will launch Soyuz MS-19 no earlier than October 5 with Commander Anton Shkaplerov and two civilian spaceflight participants. Russian film director Klim Shipenko and a Russian actress, who is yet to be named, will film a movie called “The Challenge” and spend approximately a week aboard the ISS before returning to Earth aboard Soyuz MS-18 with Novitsky.

With this commercial manned flight there will be two such flights in the fall, the Dragon Inspiration4 flight that will not dock with ISS and this Russian one. Both will then be followed by the Axiom commercial tourist flight on a Dragon capsule early in ’22. Expect such commercial manned flights to become somewhat routine in the coming years.

UPDATE: China also launched an Earth observation satellite yesterday, using its Long March 4B rocket
The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

10 SpaceX
8 China
6 Russia
2 Rocket Lab

The U.S. still leads China 14 to 8 in the national rankings.

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India & Russia successfully launch satellites

11:04 pm

Both India and Russia today successfully launched satellites into orbit.

For India it was their first launch in 2021. Their PSLV rocket put into orbit a Brazillian satellite for studying Earth resources. The launch also included 18 other cubesats.

Russia in turn used its Soyuz-2 rocket to launch a new generation weather satellite for studying that country’s remote Arctic regions.

SpaceX had also planned another Starlink launch but aborted the countdown with just over a minute to go. They plan to try again tomorrow.

The 2021 launch race:

5 SpaceX
4 China
3 Russia
1 Rocket Lab
1 Virgin Orbit
1 Northrop Grumman
1 India

The U.S. still leads China 8 to 4 in the national rankings.

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Russia launches Progress freighter to ISS

11:40 pm

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.

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Russian launches military satellite

9:50 am

Russia this morning successfully launched a military intelligence satellite using its Soyuz-2 rocket.

This was Russia’s first launch in 2021. The 2021 launch race:

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

The U.S. still leads China 5-2 in the national rankings, a lead that should widen by tomorrow as SpaceX has two Starlink satellite launches planned from Cape Canaveral four hours apart in the wee hours of the morning. If both are successful, that single American company will have as many launches as the entire world combined.

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Russia successfully launches another group of OneWeb satellites

8:43 am

Russia today successfully launched the first group of OneWeb satellites since that company entered and left bankruptcy, and it did it for the first time from its new Vostochny spaceport.

The Soyuz rocket’s flight path (see the map at the link) also took it for the first time northward over Russia, where it dropped its boosters and stages. No word on whether any villages or homes were hit.

The 36 satellites launched raises OneWeb’s constellation to 110 satellites total.

The leaders in the 2020 launch race:

33 China
24 SpaceX
15 Russia
6 ULA
6 Rocket Lab

The U.S. continues to lead China 39 to 33 in the national rankings. A SpaceX launch, originally set for yesterday, has been delayed until tomorrow due to an tank pressure issue with its upper stage.

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Faulty valve on one Soyuz causes Russians to delay second Soyuz launch

8:44 am

Due to the discovery of a faulty valve on a Soyuz rocket being prepared for launch in French Guiana, Roscosmos has delayed today’s Soyuz rocket launch from Plesetsk, Russia, until December 3rd to allow engineers to inspect similar valves on that rocket.

This quote from Dmitry Rogozin, head of Roscosmos, from the first link, describing the problem, is somewhat amusing:

“The ‘faulty valve’ would be launched with the rocket, and it would return to Earth being just a heap of mishap metal, that would be the problem. There are always some flaws, but in our case, they cost too much. Happily, the low-quality detail was timely detected by the quality control system. However, in general, I do note a sharp decline in our suppliers’ responsibility and quality of their work,”

It appears the quality control problems with Russia’s aerospace industry are continuing. No one, including the Russians, should be surprised by this, as that industry has no competition to stimulate quality work and force bad companies out of business. Instead, everything is managed by Roscosmos from on top, with much of that management designed to eliminate competition entirely and protect the companies that presently exist..

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Russia launches new GPS-type satellite

2:27 pm

Russia today successfully launched another one of its GPS-type Glonass satillites, using its Soyuz-2 rocket lifting off from its Plesetsk spaceport.

This was the first launch of this type of satellite in more than five years due to an inability to get parts because of U.S. sanctions following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In response, the Russian government instituted an export-replacement program aimed at providing indigenously produced electronics for the nation’s industries. The effort was complicated by the need in some cases to build entire factories virtually from scratch.

Around 2016, ISS Reshetnev, the prime developer of GLONASS satellites, began re-designing the GLONASS-K variant for the Russian-built components. It is unclear to what extent the original GLONASS-K series relied on foreign components, but the new batch of spacecraft did not come out of assembly until the end of the 2010s.

The leaders in the 2020 launch race:

26 China
18 SpaceX
12 Russia
4 ULA
4 Europe

The U.S. continues to lead China 28 to 26 in the national rankings.

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