Tag: NK-33
-
Mysterious Russian reconnaissance satellite successfully launched
A small spacecraft built for the Russian military lifted off Thursday on top of a modified Soyuz booster, beginning a mission to reportedly test a compact Earth-imaging platform that could be used on future spy satellites. The lightweight payload rode a Soyuz 2-1v rocket into orbit from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, a space base around 500…
-
Secret Russian satellite launched from Plesetsk Cosmodrome
A modified version of Russia’s Soyuz rocket launched Friday from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, a spaceport on the edge of the Russian Arctic, with a military satellite whose mission is shrouded in mystery. The Soyuz 2-1v rocket lifted off at 1804 GMT (3:04 p.m. EDT; 9:04 p.m. Moscow time) from Pad 4 at Site 43 at…
-
Russian military satellites orbited by stripped-down Soyuz rocket
A Russian satellite reportedly designed to demonstrate sensors to track enemy submarines and a passive secondary spacecraft to help calibrate ground-based military radars lifted off Saturday aboard a modified Soyuz rocket, but one of the payloads apparently failed to deploy from the launcher’s upper stage, according to Russian media. The Soyuz 2-1v rocket launched at…
-
Two Antares failure probes produce different results
Orbital’s Antares rocket suffers a failure moments after liftoff Oct. 28, 2014, from Wallops Island, Virginia. Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky An Orbital ATK investigation into last year’s Antares rocket crash in Virginia identified a decades-old manufacturing defect inside an AJ26 engine turbopump as the most likely cause of the failure, but a team of NASA engineers…