Soyuz Lifts Off Again, Delivers Globalstar Satellites

First time accepted submitter ZoCool writes "No doubt to the deep relief of the Russian and Arianespace engineers, and the investors buying their services, Anatoly Zac's RussianSpaceWeb reports that on Wednesday, Dec. 28, 2011, at 21:09 Moscow Time (17:09 GMT) a Soyuz-2-1a launch vehicle carrying the third tranche of the 2nd Generation Globalstar network, in the form of 6 satellites, was delivered successfully to orbit. This launch from Baikonur's Site 31, pad 6, has broken the recent unusual string of malfunctions that has bugged this usually rock solid workhorse. I imagine that the troops in the space station might be breathing a little more easily too, as the Soyuz is the backbone of the world's space missions these days, when it comes to medium lift."

Comments

Re:Russian is better place to launch geology

[ColdWetDog]

As it takes less fuel to get to space then it does from the usa for satellites and satellites can only hold so much fuel and more fuel they have = more time in space as they need fuel to keep them in there orbit.

Here, have some physics.

tl;dr - The earth spins, the spin imparts energy, you get the most boost from spin at the equator. That's why everybody else's launch pads are in the tropics. Baikonur, the Russian launch site is most useful for Pole to Pole orbits but that's a different topic.