Russia's Soyuz Scores Success with Globalstar

Today brought good news for the Russian space program after a series of launch failures over the past 12 months raised concerns about the state of the Russian aerospace industry.  A Soyuz rocket successfully placed six second-generation Globalstar satellites into orbit, just days after a similar Soyuz rocket failed to launch a Russian Meridian communications satellite.

The Soyuz 2.1a used for Globalstar is very similar to the Soyuz 2.1b used for Meridian on December 23.   The cause of the Soyuz 2.1b failure is still being investigated, but initial reports indicate a problem with the third-stage.  Debris from the rocket and satellite rained down over populated areas of northern Russia.    Meridian satelites are successors to the military Molniya series of communications satellites placed into highly elliptical orbit for decades.

The Globalstar launch today was conducted on a commercial basis through Starsem, a Russian-European joint venture that includes the France Arianespace launch services company.   Today’s rocket is similar to the type of Soyuz rocket that is launched from Arianespace’s launch facility in Kourou, French Guiana.    Soyuz is the workhorse of the Russian launch vehicle program and exists in several versions, including one that is used to launch crews to the International Space Station (ISS).  The failure of yet another version of Soyuz in August that was supposed to send a cargo spacecraft to the ISS caused a delay in launching ISS crews.  Whether the December 23 Soyuz launch failure will affect ISS operations remains unclear.