Recently in Soyuz Category

A Russian Soyuz-FG rocket successfully launched the Soyuz TMA-04M spacecraft carrying three crew to the International Space Station (ISS) at 0301 GMT this morning, 15 May. The three crew are Russian cosmonauts Gennady Padalka, Mission Commander. Cosmonaut Sergei Revin, Flight engineer and US astronaut Joe Acaba, Flight engineer. The spacecraft is scheduled to dock with the ISS at 0438 GMT on 17 May.

 

Soyuz TMA-04M launches to ISS - Courtesy Russian Federal Space Agency.

The European Space Agency is to launch a second pair of Galileo navigation satellites on 28 September before beginning a fast-track launch schedule in 2013 to orbit 18 satellites by the end of 2014 for a functional service, and 26 satellites by the end of 2015 for near-global coverage. The full constellation of 27 spacecraft and three orbiting spares should be deployed by 2019.

All launches will be from ESA's Kourou, French Guiana spaceport. The first Galileo flights are Soyuz rockets, including the veteran Russian launcher's maiden flight from Kourou last October.

From the second half of 2014, a requalified Ariane launcher, known as Ariane 5 ES Galileo, should be equipped with a four-satellite dispenser and be capable of delivering the spacecraft to orbital altitudes of 23,200km. The current ES launcher is used to launch ESA's Automated Transfer Vehicle to the International Space Station at about 380km.

Vega, the European Space Agency's new light launcher, has now got its maiden flight date set, for 26 January 2012. ESA had been hoping to launch during 2011, but the critical parameter was to get Vega launched between the 20 October launch of Soyuz and the beginning of preparations at Kourou, French Guiana for the next Automated Transfer Vehicle launch, via Ariane 5, to the International Space Station.

European made components have arrived by sea at Kourou from Avio's factory in Colleferro, near Rome. The inaugural campaign will begin on November 7 with rollout of Vega's P80 first stage to the launch pad, followed during the subsequent weeks by stacking of the Zefiro 23 second stage and Zefiro 9 third stage - all of which are loaded with solid-propellant. A progress review will be held on December 7 to authorize a continuation of the final integration process - allowing the bi-propellant Attitude and Vernier Upper Module (AVUM) to be mated atop the launcher, and final operations to begin with the mission's multi-spacecraft payload.

carrying LARES (LAser RElativity Satellite) and nine cubesat educational payloads of varying sizes.

Vega will lift off from the Spaceport's ZLV launch site, which originally was used for the Ariane 1 and Ariane 3 vehicles.

The medium-lift Soyuz and light category Vega will complement ESA's heavylift Ariane 5s to provide a fully flexible range of launch options at Kourou. Vega, whose first stage is one of the world's biggest carbon fibre single-piece structures, is designed to launch satellites up to 1.5 tonnes into 700km polar orbits. As French Guiana is much closer to the equator than Soyuz's normal launch site at Baikonur, added boost from the Earth's spin will nearly double its maximum payload to geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) to 3 tonnes. Ariane 5 can lift 10 tonnes to GTO, though ESA member governments are thought to be moving towards approval of a mid-life upgrade to increase payload capacity.

A longer-term project is also underway, to develop a a high-thrust cryogenic engine that could form the basis of ESA's next-generation launcher. It will not fly until about 2025, but is intended to provide a medium-lift capability in a modular design, with a re-ignitable upper stage and options for strap-on solid propellant boosters offering extra thrust.

This morning's scheduled historic first launch of a Soyuz rocket from the European Space Agency's French Guiana facility was delayed when "an anomaly detected during fueling of the Soyuz launcher's third stage" interruped the countdown.
According to launch operator Arianespace, the Soyuz (pictured being set up on the pad) and its two Galileo satellites, along with the launch facility, have been placed in a safe mode. A new launch date will be formally announced later today, but an earlier statement by the European Commission's wonderfully-named esPRESSo news service said that 24h would do the trick, with lift-off now expected for 1230 CEST/1030 GMT/0730 local time tomorrow, Friday 21 October.
The launch will be the first shot in a push to orbit enough Galileo navigation spacecraft for global coverage in 2014 - that's seven years behind the original plan, so a day more to loft the first couple units is neither her nor there.
Watch the launch online here.

The European Space Agency just released this video to show how its Galileo satellite navigation system works. I love the part about how a nanosecond error in the onboard clocks would translate to a 30m error on the ground - but if that error were a second, the position error would amount to 300,000km, enough to leave driver wondering whether they were approaching the house or cruising on the Moon.


The first two spacecraft are due for launch on 20 October, and then ESA will be making a fast-track push to provide near-global coverage in 2014 and, in 2019, a full constellation of 27 spacecraft and three orbiting spares.

Unlike the USA's GPS system, Galileo will be fully under civilian control. The idea is to ensure that Europe is self-sufficient in a technology that is becomming increasingly indispensible. Galileo will also do a better job than GPS at high latitudes, so Nordic Europeans should really notice the difference. Everybody else can be sure sure of continuous service - no worries about the US military degrading the signal in an emergency - and, combined with the ground-based signal enhancement system called EGNOS that went live earlier this year, can get position information accurate to less than 1m. EGNOS signals are free, too, and Brussels is encouraging companies to develop receivers and services to exploit them.

Budget wrangles will have delayed Galileo by seven years by the time coverage goes global in 2014, but it should be well worth the wait. Satnav services are already coming down in price, so the combination of an added layer of reliability and better geographic coverage should make them cheap and easy to use for any conceivable application.

Reading about president Barack Obama's decision to resurrect the Orion crew exploration vehicle as an escape capsule we are told (here and then here and in plenty of other articles) that this will reduce NASA's dependence upon Russian crew transport services

This could not be more wrong. Russia has been providing all International Space Station (ISS) crew rotation flghts since STS-129, the last Shuttle flight to do that job in November last year

The ISS has six crew (yes Expedition 22 had only five crew) and for that Russia is providing four three-crew Energia Soyuz TMA spacecraft a year

Orion Lite will not launch crew, it launches unmanned for an automatic rendezvous and docking with the International Space Station and then sits there, but until when?

It is not needed for an emergency return. Soyuz have been docked to the station for the emergency return role ever since station has been inhabited. So Orion Lite is not reducing Russian flights to the station and it is simply not needed for the escape role

credit: CNES / caption: one day this will not just be a CGI video screengrab

This month, the European Space Agency director general Jean Jacques Dordain told me, the launch complex gantry for the Samara Space Center Soyuz 2-1a rockets flying from French Guiana should be finished and a maiden flight date should be announced. However Russia's deputy prime minister Sergei Ivanov was not so sure when speaking to RIA Novosti this week, saying "This year, I hope, a milestone rocket...event will take place" [emphasis added]

This blogger would have asked Dordain at the CroySat-2 launch event but the director general was not available for questions, despite the success of that Kosmotras Dnepr rocket flight. Perhaps the Soyuz 2-1a flight will take place in time for the global space summit Ivanov's president, Dmitry Medvedev, has called for? Rather than the usual G8 suspects of the US, European countries, Russia and Japan Medvedev also sees exploration collaboration between it and the G8 near-peers, China, India and Brazil. In this article on the Russian Federal Space Agency website Ivanov pledges increases in spending for the country's space programme. Are you listening Mr Obama? 


credit: Federal Space Agency / caption: the gantry is constructed in Russia prior to shipping