Soyuz Lifts Off Again, Delivers Globalstar Satellites 40
First time accepted submitter ZoCool writes "No doubt to the deep relief of the Russian and Arianespace engineers, and the investors buying their services, Anatoly Zac's RussianSpaceWeb reports that on Wednesday, Dec. 28, 2011, at 21:09 Moscow Time (17:09 GMT) a Soyuz-2-1a launch vehicle carrying the third tranche of the 2nd Generation Globalstar network, in the form of 6 satellites, was delivered successfully to orbit. This launch from Baikonur's Site 31, pad 6, has broken the recent unusual string of malfunctions that has bugged this usually rock solid workhorse. I imagine that the troops in the space station might be breathing a little more easily too, as the Soyuz is the backbone of the world's space missions these days, when it comes to medium lift."
Re:Space X (Score:3, Informative)
Why spend so much money on development within a badly managed and cash bleeding branch - when you can pay a company a fraction, and get them to do all the management. While I find it sad that the shuttles have stopped, I certainly know that what costs a government a million dollars, a private company can do for a few hundred thousand at most.
Perhaps this is actually better for the US space program to be able to have private rockets that can fly up and down rather than having to maintain its own fleet.
If you want to get from home to the station, it's cheaper to catch a bus rather than having to own the bus company.
Re:Russian is better place to launch geology (Score:4, Informative)
As it takes less fuel to get to space then it does from the usa for satellites and satellites can only hold so much fuel and more fuel they have = more time in space as they need fuel to keep them in there orbit.
Here, have some physics [wired.com].
tl;dr - The earth spins, the spin imparts energy, you get the most boost from spin at the equator. That's why everybody else's launch pads are in the tropics. Baikonur [wikipedia.org], the Russian launch site is most useful for Pole to Pole orbits but that's a different topic.