Tag: Angara
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Launch Roundup: Soyuz launches ISS crew; Vega C and Falcon 9 launch customer missions
This week has seen seven launches from five different rockets from across the world. SpaceX launched two missions on its workhorse Falcon 9, while a Russian Soyuz launched three new crew members towards the International Space Station from Kazakhstan. A Russian military payload launched atop an Angara 1.2 from northern Russia, and South Korea launched…
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Launch Roundup: SpaceX, Chinese, and Russian missions make up busy week
Two Chinese rockets, a pair of Russian missions, a trio of Falcon 9 launches, a New Shepard, an Electron, and the long-awaited tenth flight of Starship were scheduled to fly this week. In Russia, a Soyuz rocket launched a modernized version of the Vostok capsule that flew crewed missions in the 1960s from Baikonur, while…
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Launch Roundup: Missions launched from the U.S., China, and Russia
On the heels of a busy launch week, this week saw a number of launches – and attempts – from around the globe. SpaceX was expected to launch five Falcon 9 missions, including a rideshare and the delayed Axiom-4 crewed mission. However, Axiom-4 was pushed back from June 22 for additional analysis and is now…
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Launch Roundup: SpaceX, Rocket Lab, and Firefly set to launch amid busy launch manifest
This week, a busy launch manifest saw SpaceX launch the Crew-10 and two Starlink missions from Florida and the delayed SPHEREx/PUNCH and Transporter 13 missions from California. Outside of the United States, Rocket Lab flew an Electron from New Zealand. A Chang Zhang 8 rocket launched from a new commercial pad in China which also…
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Launch Roundup: Delta IV swan song, Angara test flight from Russia, and three Falcon 9 flights
The second week of April not only has a long-awaited total solar eclipse but also orbital launches from Russia and the United States. Besides the long-awaited NROL-70 Delta IV Heavy finale, there was a test flight of the Russian Angara rocket from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia and a handful of Falcon 9 launches. Delta…
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Russia’s next-generation rocket is a decade old and still flying dummy payloads
By some measures, Russia’s next-generation flagship rocket program—the Angara—is now three decades old. The Russian government approved the development of the Angara rocket in 1992, soon after the fall of the Soviet Union ushered in a prolonged economic recession. It has been nearly 10 years since Russia launched the first Angara test flights. The heaviest…
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Russian space program facing challenges ahead of ambitious 2023
In the new year, Russia plans to launch its first probe to the Moon since 1976, debut a new member of the Soyuz rocket family, and launch the new Soyuz GVK resupply spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS). 2022 proved to be a slow year for the Russian launch cadence, with one Proton-M launch,…
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Angara 1.2 launches satellite for Russian Aerospace Forces
At 19:55 UTC on Oct. 15, an Angara 1.2 rocket launched from Site 35/1 at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome carrying a payload for the Russian military to a Sun-synchronous Orbit (SSO). The exact identity of the payload is not known, other than it received the Kosmos-2560 designation upon reaching orbit. While initially suspected to be a…
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Russia launches first orbital Angara 1.2 rocket with military payload
Russia’s Angara 1.2 rocket has launched a payload for the Russian Aerospace Forces, the VKS RF. This is Angara 1.2’s first operational flight, after one suborbital test flight to verify that all systems worked and three test flights of the Angara-A5 variant to prove its ability to launch payloads to a geostationary orbit. Not much…
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Russia launches third and final Angara A5 demonstration mission
Russia has launched its third and final demonstration flight of the Angara A5 rocket on Monday, December 27. Angara is being developed and built by the Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center and is intended to replace several existing launch vehicles. Angara attempted to place its 2,400 kg mass simulator in a near geostationary…