Success of the 1704th launch of Soyuz
Jacques van Oene
Evry, December 21, 2005
The 1704th flight of a Soyuz launch vehicle was performed Thursday, December
22, 2005 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 0:38 a.m. Baikonur
time (Wednesday, December 21, 2005 at 7:38 p.m., in Paris).
Starsem, Arianespace and their Russian partners report that the Progress
spacecraft was accurately placed on the target orbit for another mission to
the ISS.
This was the eleventh Soyuz family mission in 2005. The next Soyuz flight
will be accomplished by Starsem for the European Space Agency, launching the
Giove-A spacecraft, the first European navigation satellite.
Soyuz sustained launch rate confirms its position as one of the world's
primary launch vehicles. This rate also demonstrates Samara Space Center's
continuous production capacity, as well as the operational capability of
launch teams at Baikonur under the authority of the Russian Federal Space
Agency.
With the introduction of the Soyuz at the Guiana Space Center (CSG), this
famed Russian launch vehicle becomes an integral part of the European
launcher fleet, together with the heavy-lift Ariane 5 and the lightweight
Vega. To be offered exclusively by Arianespace to the commercial market, the
Soyuz at CSG is Europe's reference medium-class launch vehicle for
governmental and commercial missions.
Starsem is the Soyuz Company, bringing together all key players involved in
the production, operation and international commercial marketing of the
world's most versatile launch vehicle. Shareholders in Starsem are
Arianespace, EADS, the Russian Federal Space Agency and the Samara Space
Center.
The Starsem manifest for Soyuz missions currently includes contracted
launches for the European Space Agency, Eumetsat and Globalstar LLC.
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Jacques :-)