Russia launches communications satellite
Using its Soyuz rocket the Russians today launched a satellite aimed at providing communications to Russia itself.
The satellite, while apparently providing civilian communications services, was a Russian government project. It is not commercial as we would define it in the west.
The leaders in the 2019 launch race:
11 China
10 Russia
9 SpaceX
5 Europe (Arianespace)
4 India
The U.S. continues to lead China 15 to 11 in the national rankings. At the moment it also looks like Russia has a chance to top 20 launches in 2019, which would make this its best launch year since 2015. This suggests that they have finally begun to recover from the discovery in 2017 that an engine contractor was using substandard welding materials to pocket some extra cash, thus causing many launch failures.
Using its Soyuz rocket the Russians today launched a satellite aimed at providing communications to Russia itself.
The satellite, while apparently providing civilian communications services, was a Russian government project. It is not commercial as we would define it in the west.
The leaders in the 2019 launch race:
11 China
10 Russia
9 SpaceX
5 Europe (Arianespace)
4 India
The U.S. continues to lead China 15 to 11 in the national rankings. At the moment it also looks like Russia has a chance to top 20 launches in 2019, which would make this its best launch year since 2015. This suggests that they have finally begun to recover from the discovery in 2017 that an engine contractor was using substandard welding materials to pocket some extra cash, thus causing many launch failures.