by David Todd | Jan 3, 2020 | China, commercial launch services, India, Launches, Russia, Seradata News, Suborbital
While still high relative to recent years, the space launch total for 2019 at 102 orbital attempted launches was more than 10 per cent down on last year’s figure of 114. China continued to dominate, again taking the number one spot with 34 launches. These included the...
by David Todd | Dec 27, 2019 | Launches, Russia, Satellites
In a late year launch (Russian launches are often timed for the “Western” Christmas period) a Rockot/Breeze KM launch vehicle launched the Gonets M-14, M-15 and M-16 civilian “store-forward” communication satellites for JSC Gonets SatCom. The...
by David Todd | Dec 25, 2019 | Launches, Russia, Satellites
While the spacecraft had originally been planned to fly on a Zenit, Russia finally launched its Elektro-L No. 3 geostationary weather sat. It was launched by Proton-M/DM-03 from Baikonur near Tyuratam at 1203 GMT on 24 Dec 2019. At under two metric tons mass, the...
by David Todd | Nov 26, 2019 | Launches, Military space, Russia
The Plesetsk launch site in Northern Russia was the location from where a Russian military “space situational awareness” satellite was launched from. The launch by a Soyuz 2-1v rocket occurred at 1752 GMT on 25 November 2019. The spacecraft dubbed Cosmos...
by David Todd | Nov 5, 2019 | ESA, India, India, JAXA, NASA, Russia, Science, Seradata News, Technology
The 70th International Astronautical Congress (IAC 2019) was held in the US Capital Washington DC during October. One advantage of the event being held in a “mainline” capital city – rather than the much smaller city of Bremen last year and Adelaide the...
by David Todd | Oct 16, 2019 | Apollo, On a Sadder Note, Russia
Alexei Leonov, the first human to move in space outside a spacecraft, has died at the age of 85. The former cosmonaut made the first spacewalk on 18 March 1965, beating Ed White’s NASA spacewalk during Gemini IV on 3 June by nearly three months. Born on 30 May 1934,...
