The Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) has announced that a Soyuz-2.1a has successfully lifted off from Baikonur Cosmodrome carrying 6 Globalstar-2 low-orbit communication satellites, on February 6. The launch was originally intended for February 5, but it was postponed due to high winds occurring at an altitude of 8 to 10 km. This is the first launch of 2013 from [...]
Post Tagged with: “Fregat”
Russian Pioneers of Space Safety: Beyond Mitigation
This article is the final installment of a three-part series, featuring an exclusive interview with Victor V. Shalaj and Valery I. Trushlyakov, reporting their research on space safety and sustainability. Read Part 1 here and Part 2 here. Approaching the space debris problem by mitigating future debris creation might not resolve the issue because of the large number of objects already [...]
Cut Cable Severs Russian Link with International Space Station, Satellites
Shortly after the successful November 14 launch of their sixth Meridian dual use communication satellite, Moscow Mission Control lost contact. With everything. Construction workers had severed a communications cable outside the building, resulting in a Mission Control unable to send commands to any of its satellites or the Russian segment of the International Space Station. State news agency RIA Novosti originally [...]
Russian Space: Big Picture, Advancement, and Failures
By: Dr. A.Zhalko-Tytarenko When trying to understand the realities of the Russian Space Industry one needs to keep in mind that in Russia “Space is big, really big,” to paraphrase the 2005 film The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Probably this is why there is no middle ground when it comes to opinions on the condition of the Russian Space [...]
Phobos-Grunt 2 Bound for Launch in 2020, Russians Confirmed While Celebrating Sputnik
It seems Russian spirits weren’t broken by last year’s Phobos-Grunt launch fiasco and less then a year after the botch it was confirmed that a Phobos-Grunt 2 mission might take place in 2020 or 2021. Speaking during the “Days of Science” dedicated to the 55th anniversary of Sputnik, Lev Zeleny, the director of the Space Research Institute of the Russian [...]
Rumors of MetOp-B Launcher Anomolies Surface
On September 17, European weather satellite MetOp-B launched aboard a Soyuz-2.1a rocket with Fregat booster from Baikonour Cosmodrome. All seemed to go as plan, and ESA handed control of the satellite over to EUMETSAT for testing and operations a couple days later. But it seems MetOp-B’s arrival in its intended polar orbit entailed an element of luck, with unofficial reports surfacing [...]
Final Soyuz-U Launched from Plesetsk
On May 17, Russia launched its final Soyuz-U rocket from the Plesetsk Space Center. The 40 year old launch vehicle family will be replaced by the Soyuz-2 and Angara-A3 carrier rockets. The Soyuz-U is a medium class carrier rocket that was developed from the R-7 ballistic missile in the mid-1950′s. The first Soyuz-U launched in 1973, also from the Plesetsk Space [...]
