Saturdays launch marked the 37th and final flight of a Russian launch vehicle in 2014, continuing to lead the way ahead of the United States with 23 launches and China that will finish the year with 15 missions. Russian vehicles continued to show a solid success rate, though 2014 saw one failed Proton launch caused by a malfunction of the third stage vernier engine leading to the loss of the Ekspress AM-4R satellite in May. Proton had one more questionable mission when its Briz-M upper stage delivered the Ekspress AM-6 spacecraft to a slightly off-target orbit. The world-leading Soyuz flew 22 times this year finishing another perfect year with a 100% success rate for Soyuz itself, however, one Soyuz/Fregat mission from French Guiana lifted a pair of Galileo navigation satellites to an incorrect orbit when Fregat experienced a malfunction. Additionally, 2014 saw two launches of Rockot, a single Zenit-3SL mission, one launch of Strela and two Dnepr missions including a record-setting cluster launch that delivered 37 satellites to orbit. Looking into the future, Russia laid crucial groundwork for the Angara program - conducting a successful sub-orbital test of the smaller Angara 1.2 vehicle in July and this weeks flawless inaugural Angara A5 mission showing off the power of Russias new heavy-weight launcher that surpasses the capabilities of the Proton. Although its successor took flight this year, the Proton is looking forward to continuing operations for the next decade as a slow handover from the venerable Proton to the new Angara is completed. Protons retirement is foreseen in the mid-2020s. Saturdays Proton mission marked the 401st launch of the vehicle since its inauguration in 1965. It was the 8th Proton launch of the year and the third mission contracted through International Launch Services. 2015 will be a busy year for Proton with 11 launches on the manifest beginning with the launch of Inmarsat-5 F2 in late January. Nine of the 11 payloads to be launched by Proton in 2015 are communications satellites including three Russian Ekspress satellites. The other two missions will loft the classified military communications satellite known as Garpun and a triplet of Glonass navigation satellites marking the comeback of the Block DM-03 upper stage. Credit: Roscosmos/SpaceFlight/RT/SatPublish
Posted on: Sun, 28 Dec 2014 10:57:43 +0000
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