Latest Rocket launch Stories
The Russian space agency will launch 10 carrier rockets at a French facility under a new contract with a French company, officials said Saturday. Arianespace Chairman Jean-Yves Le Gall said the deal his French satellite launch firm signed Saturday with the Russian Federal Space Agency will allow the Russians to use its facilities in French Guiana for Soyuz-ST carrier rocket launches, RIA Novosti reported. "The contract envisions the purchase of 10 Soyuz carrier rockets to be launched from...
FARNBOROUGH (UK). July 14 (Interfax-AVN) - The Federal Space Agency has received preliminary orders for about 20 Soyuz rocket launches from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana and the Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan, agency deputy head Vitaly Davydov told Interfax-AVN at the Farnborough Air Show on Monday. "We are in active negotiations with the clients. We hope to agree on up to 20 Soyuz launches in the near future," he said. The agency and the Samara CSKB-Progress are preparing to...
Russia launches rocket with military satellite MOSCOW, June 27 (Xinhua) -- A Proton-K rocket carrying a Kosmos military satellite was launched from the cosmodrome of Baikonur on Friday, the Itar-Tass news agency reported. The heavy carrier took off at 03:59 Moscow time (23:59 GMT). Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov watched the launch. The launch was successful, both the information service of the space troops and the Titov spacecraft test and control center said. The launch...
PARIS -- Israel's Amos-3 telecommunications satellite was placed successfully into geostationary orbit on Monday aboard the inaugural flight of the Russian-Ukrainian Land Launch system, setting the stage for what satellite-fleet operators hope will be a lively competition between Land Launch -- affiliated with Sea Launch Co. of Long Beach, Calif. -- and Russian Soyuz rockets launched from Europe's equatorial spaceport. Amos-3's owner, Spacecom of Tel Aviv, confirmed that the...
LOS ANGELES -- Unusually strong Pacific currents and winds stymied an attempt to launch a rocket carrying a commercial satellite and forced the oceangoing platform and control ship to sail back from the equator to their home port Tuesday.The launch attempt was the first by Sea Launch Co. since a damaging rocket explosion in January.The mission to put a mobile voice and data services satellite for Abu Dhabi-based Thuraya Satellite Telecommunications Co. into orbit will be rescheduled, Sea...
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - A rocket carrying an intelligence-gathering payload for the Pentagon suffered a technical problem after its launch, officials said. But they were confident Saturday that its secretive mission would be performed.The Atlas V rocket launched Friday morning, hauling a payload from the National Reconnaissance Office, a division of the Department of Defense that builds and operates spy satellites.The NRO said Friday night that the launch was successful, but the rocket's...
CAYENNE (Reuters) - The launch of a heavy-lift Ariane-5 rocket carrying two satellites was postponed in French Guiana on Friday for the second time this week due to a new technical fault, space officials said.Officials of the Arianespace rocket launch company said a new launch date would be announced in several hours. They said one of the launch customers had requested further checks of a telemetry circuit.A first launch date on Tuesday was scrubbed when a problem linking the rocket to the...
KOUROU, French Guiana (Reuters) - A European Ariane-5 rocket has successfully launched two satellites into orbit late on Wednesday in the fifth mission from French Guiana this year.The rocket blasted off at 7.33 p.m. (2233 GMT) from the European Space Agency's launch center in Kourou on the northeast coast of South America.Aboard the rocket was the INSAT-4A telecommunications satellite for India's Space Research Organization and MSG-2, a new generation weather satellite for Europe's...
MOSCOW (AP) - Russia suspended launches of a rocket used in a failed mission to put a European satellite into orbit to map polar ice, news reports Sunday said. The Rokot booster rocket will not be launched again pending the outcome of an investigation into Saturday's unsuccessful launch, state-run Rossiya television reported, citing the Russian space agency. Space agency officials could not immediately be reached Sunday to confirm the report. The rocket's second stage failed to separate...
BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan -- Born in Cold War secrecy and the scene of Soviet space triumph and tragedy, the Baikonur cosmodrome marked its 50th anniversary Thursday, hailed by the presidents of Russia and Kazakhstan as a technological workhorse on the wind-swept steppes of Central Asia. Baikonur launched the first satellite and the first man into space, and is now home to the Soyuz rockets that service the international space station, shuttling crucial deliveries, along with Russian cosmonauts...
