Yesterday’s successful Soyuz rocket launch was not only a return-to-flight mission for the launch vehicle, but also fulfilled Russia’s goal of restoring its GLONASS navigation satellite system to full operations.

Bob Christy (@Zarya_Info) of the Zarya.info website tweeted today: “GLONASS – the constellation is complete, it was last in this state 15 years ago.”

GLONASS is Russia’s equivalent of the U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS) and requires a constellation of 24 satellites to provide three-dimensional (latitude, longitude, altitude) global coverage. Over the past decade and a half the number of operational satellites dipped to only about half that many. Restoring the system to full, global coverage became a priority for Russian President Dimitri Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. In 2008, Putin signed an executive order adding $2.6 billion to the GLONASS budget to increase the number of satellites from the 16 operational at that time to 30 by 2011.

They hoped to have 24 operational satellites by the end of 2010, but those plans were spoiled by the failure of a Proton launch vehicle carrying three GLONASS satellites last December. That failure was cited as one of the reasons that Russian space agency head Anatoly Perminov lost his job a few months later. Other Russian space officials also reportedly were sacked.

Russia resumed launches of its Soyuz rocket today.

A Soyuz-2 rocket boosted a GLONASS-M navigation satellite into orbit at 20:15 GMT (16:15 EDT) today from Russia’s Plesetsk launch site. Everything seems to have gone well according to a report on Ria Novosti. The launch had been scheduled for yesterday (October 1), but was postponed because of bad weather.

There are several versions of the Soyuz rocket. The Soyuz-2 used today is similar, but not identical, to the one that failed in August when launching a Progress cargo spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS). Today’s launch is one of two that the Russians are using to recertify the rocket for launching crews to the ISS. Next is another Progress launch later this month on a Soyuz U. If that goes well, Russia plans to launch the next three ISS crewmembers on November 14 on the Soyuz FG version that is used for such missions.

China’s top leaders were either at the Beijing Command and Control Center or the Jiuquan launch site for the successful launch of Tiangong-1, China’s first space station module.

China’s CNTV English-language news channel carried the launch live. The on-time liftoff was at 9:16 pm Beijing time (9:16 am EDT). Cameras on the ground and on the rocket provided excellent visual coverage of the launch on a clear night in the Gobi desert.

The final orbit will be about 350 x 200 kilometers according to commentary on CNTV. No one is aboard Tiangong-1. It is an automated docking target. Three spacecraft are scheduled to dock with it over the next two years. First will be the unoccupied Shenzhou 8, planned for launch in about a month.

UPDATE 2: LIFTOFF!

UPDATE: Thanks to Alan Boyle for pointing us to China’s English language live coverage of the launch at http://english.cntv.cn/live/.

China’s Tiangong-1 (Heavenly Palace) experimental space station module is still set for launch this morning between 9:16 and 9:31 EDT (9:16-9:31 pm Beijing time).

Xinhua reports that the fleet of tracking ships are in their assigned locations to monitor the launch of the Long March IIF rocket.

The module is essentially a docking target for three Shenzhou spacecraft that will be launched over the next two years. The first two (Shenzhou 8 and 9) will be unoccupied, while the third will have at least one crew. Xinhua reported yesterday and today that Shenzhou 10 will carry a female Chinese astronaut (“taikonaut”), which would be a first for China.

China launched its first taikonaut in 2003 on Shenzhou 5 (the first four in the series were unoccupied test flights). In 2005, two taikonauts flew on Shenzhou 6, and in 2008, Shenzhou 7 carried three taikonauts, two of whom conducted China’s first spacewalk.

China’s Xinhua news agency reports that the launch of the Tiangong-1 (Heavenly Palace) experimental space station module will take place tomorrow, September 29, just after 9:00 pm Beijing time (which is 12 hours ahead of EDT).

The launch window is open from 9:16-9:31 pm Beijing time (9:16-9:31 am EDT) according to Xinhua. The module is experimental and its primary purpose is for docking tests. China plans to launch at least three Shenzhou spacecraft to dock with it. The first two, Shenzhou 8 and 9, will be unoccupied; the third, Shenzhou 10, will carry one Chinese astronaut (referred to in the West as a “taikonaut”) according to Xinhua.

The docking tests are steps towards an eventual permanently-crewed space station. Chinese news sources have mentioned various dates for that space station over the years. Today’s report from Xinhua says it will be launched “around 2020.”

Shenzhou is the spacecraft China uses for its taikonauts and is similar to the Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Shenzhou 1-4 were uncrewed test flights. The first Chinese taikonaut flew on Shenzhou 5 in 2003. In 2005, Shenzhou 6 was launched with two taikonauts. Shenzhou 7, launched in 2008, carried three taikonauts, two of whom performed China’s first spacewalk.

Shenzhou 8 is scheduled for launch a month after Tiangong-1. It will be unoccupied and conduct two docking tests before returning to Earth. Details of the Shenzhou 9 flight were not discussed in the article, but it apparently also will be unoccupied since the article focuses on Shenzhou 10’s flight with a taikonaut. The one-person crew for that mission has already been chosen and is in training and will perform manual rendenzvous and docking tests with Tiangong-1 according to Xinhua.

The article did not specify the launch dates for the Shenzhou spacecraft, saying only that Shenzhou 8 will launch one month after Tiangong-1, and the other two will be launched “in the next two years.”

UPDATE (Sept. 26 EDT): Xinhua reported today that the launch would be later this week (Thursday or Friday Beijing time) because of poor weather conditions.

The long awaited launch of China’s Tiangong-1 spacecraft may take place in the next few days. It is a step in developing a Chinese space station.

China’s news agency, Xinhua, reported on September 20 that the launch window would be open from September 27-30. Presumably that is in Beijing time, which is 12 hours ahead of Eastern Daylight Time, so that window could begin on September 26 EDT.

The plan is for Tiangong-1 (Heavenly Palace) to dock with an unoccupied Shenzhou 8 spacecraft that would be launched later this year. There are no plans for Chinese astronauts (taikonauts) to occupy either module. Instead, this is a docking test in preparation for an eventual occupied space station.

Tiangong-1 will be launched on a Long March II-F from China’s Jiuquan launch site in the Gobi desert, which is used for all of its human spaceflight launches. The launch was delayed while Chinese officials determined the reasons for the failure of a different version of the Long March rocket in August.

Russia is quickly recovering from the double rocket failures experienced in August.

Itar-Tass reports today that the Proton rocket will return to service on September 22. Its payload is identified only as a “defence satellite.” On August 18, a Proton rocket with a Briz upper stage malfunctioned stranding the Express-AM4 communications satellite in the wrong orbit. An investigating commission determined that it was caused by human error in programming the upper stage.

A few days later, on August 24, the third stage of a Soyuz U rocket failed dooming the Progress M-12M cargo spacecraft it was carrying. The spacecraft was taking cargo to the International Space Station. A different, but similar, version of the Soyuz rocket is now scheduled to launch a navigation satellite on October 1. That launch originally had been scheduled for late August, but was postponed pending the review of the August 24 failure.

The Russians determined that a clogged fuel line was responsible for the Progress M-12M failure and that it was “accidental.” The next launch to ISS is now scheduled for October 30. It will be another Progress spacecraft. The first flight of a Soyuz (yet another variant) with a crew is scheduled for November 12.

Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, has announced a schedule for resuming cargo and crew flights to the International Space Station (ISS).

According to the Russian press service RIA Novosti, the next Progress cargo spacecraft will launch on October 30, followed by a Soyuz crew mission on November 12, then another Soyuz crew mission on December 20, and another Progress on January 26, 2012.

The Russians determined that the Progress M-12M failure was “accidental” and caused by a clogged fuel line. The investigating commission recommended additional control procedures.

If the announced launch dates are met, the ISS would not have to operate temporarily in an unoccupied mode. Three of the six ISS crew will return to Earth tomorrow (CDT, Thursday, EDT and at the landing site in Kazakhstan). The other three are scheduled to return on November 16. A Soyuz crew launch on November 12 would mean docking on November 14 and two days to hand over operations from one crew to the next. The date for the November 16 landing is determined by the lifetime of the Soyuz spacecraft that will take them home. It is already docked to the ISS and has an on-orbit lifetime of about 200 days, so the crew must return at that time. NASA and Roscosmos had considered the possibility of destaffing the ISS if the Soyuz rocket, which lofts both the Progress cargo spacecraft and the Soyuz crew spacecraft, could not be recertified quickly.

Russia’s Soyuz rocket may have failed to place Progress M-12M into orbit, but it has a very good track record over the decades according to statistics complied by Jonathan McDowell.

McDowell is an x-ray astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophyiscs, who, in his spare time, produces an excellent, free newsletter, Jonathan’s Space Report. It provides details on space launches on a roughly monthly basis. The most recent edition, No. 646, includes statistics on launch successes and failures of the various versions of the Soyuz rocket over time.

According to his count, since 1966, there have been 1,209 launches of nine variants of the Soyuz rocket on both orbital and suborbital missions of which 37 failed to reach orbit or to reach the correct orbit. That yields a 97 percent success rate.

The Soyuz FG, used to launch crews to the International Space Station, has a 100 percent success rate since 2001 according to his statistics. By comparison, the Soyuz U, which failed in launching Progress M-12M, has had 20 failures in 761 launch attempts since 1973 based on his numbers. That translaters to a 97.4 percent success rate.

A Russian investigation determined that the Progress M-12M failure was due to a clogged fuel line, which the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, considered to be a random event. No official announcement has been made as to when Soyuz rocket flights with crews will resume. One or two successful satellite launches on Soyuz rockets are expected before committing to launching the next crew.

The Wall Street Journal and New York Times both are reporting this morning on the findings of the Russian commission investigating the Progress M-12M launch failure; SpacePolicyOnline.com carried the story yesterday.

In short, the third stage of the Soyuz rocket failed because of a blockage in a fuel line that the Russians consider an isolated event.

The Wall Street Journal goes so far as to predict that crewed Soyuz flights could resume “in mid-October.” The New York Times, however, says “the panel offered no guidance on when this type of rocket would again be considered ready for manned missions.”

Three of the six International Space Station (ISS) astronauts will come home next week. The launch of their replacements is on hold pending resolution of the issues surrounding the Progress M-12M launch failure. ISS program managers had been considering the possibility that the ISS would have to be destaffed in November, when the three remaining ISS crew members return home, if the Soyuz was not yet ready to fly again. Yesterday, NASA Associate Administrator Bill Gerstenmaier sounded a very optimistic note that that would not be necessary, however.