4 ms·

From EU or are Russian launches not from Europe ?

by MaxPock 2y ago

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
zamadatix 2y ago
Do they have a commercial (non-state entity) which has actually performed a space launch?
- pjc50 2y ago
  Ariane is launched by a subsidiary of Airbus.
  - zamadatix 2y ago
    Airbus has significant (at least 25% last I looked) state ownership by various European governments. They did the development, the launching is done by Arianespace which is half owned by Safran (which is also part owned by France). That combined with the Ariane programs themselves being initiated and funded by the ESA makes it a much weaker claim to be a commercial rocket launch. It's going to be hard to find a space rocket company which has 0% state involvement (e.g. Isar Aerospace and SpaceX have also accepted some amount of funding through venture rounds or contracts one way or the other at some point which can be traced back to governments, or purchased use of government launch facilities) by nature of "why wouldn't you accept a government launch at some point if you've already built a cost efficient rocket" or the like... but I think it's fair for Isar to claim to be launching the first commercial European space rocket since the program to build the rocket wasn't initiated by a state space agency or fulfilling a state agency contract by doing the initial flight.
  - echoangle 2y ago
    Not only Airbus though. 74% of Arianespace is owned by ArianeGroup, which is 50% Airbus and 50% Safran.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
IncreasePosts 2y ago
Russia launches from Baikonur in Kazakhstan, which is in Asia (per the traditional Europe-Asia boundary of the Ural river). Also, most EU launches are from French Guiana, which is a part of France and therefore a part of the EU, so there have been commercial space launches from the EU(the polity), just not from Europe(the landmass).
- zamadatix 2y ago
  Russia has the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Europe and has launched from there before (and is still active), just not via commercial launch provider AFAIK.
- a3w 2y ago
  Russia also used to launch french guiana. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_at_the_Guiana_Space_Centre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_at_the_Guiana_Space_Cent... Was nice having world peace from a NATO's point of view in 2011-2013. Russian launches continued till third wave of Ukraine territory conflicts in 2022, says wikipedia.
  - oskarkk 2y ago
    The nice thing is that even today, some American astronauts are flying to the ISS from Russia on Russian rockets, and some Russian astronauts are flying from the USA on American rockets. They're doing that for redundancy of getting their people to space, and for the general cooperation.
- hangonhn 2y ago
  What did Russia/USSR pick Kazakhstan at the launching point? Was it the closest they can get to the equator?
  - fuoqi 2y ago
    The place was originally selected because of the combination of several factors: - Closeness to the equator. - Ease of access by rail. - Lack of populated/foreign areas at the path of falling booster stages. - Relative closeness to production centers. - Far enough from borders and small population around the site to make spying harder (remember that in the early days it was also an ICBM launch site). Other central Asian Soviet republics were farther south, but much worse on the other factors. Russia simply continues to use it because of the existing infrastructure and tries to gradually move its civilian space program to the new Vostochny Cosmodrome.

From EU or are Russian launches not from Europe ?

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

zamadatix 2y ago

Do they have a commercial (non-state entity) which has actually performed a space launch?

pjc50 2y ago
Ariane is launched by a subsidiary of Airbus.
- zamadatix 2y ago
  Airbus has significant (at least 25% last I looked) state ownership by various European governments. They did the development, the launching is done by Arianespace which is half owned by Safran (which is also part owned by France). That combined with the Ariane programs themselves being initiated and funded by the ESA makes it a much weaker claim to be a commercial rocket launch. It's going to be hard to find a space rocket company which has 0% state involvement (e.g. Isar Aerospace and SpaceX have also accepted some amount of funding through venture rounds or contracts one way or the other at some point which can be traced back to governments, or purchased use of government launch facilities) by nature of "why wouldn't you accept a government launch at some point if you've already built a cost efficient rocket" or the like... but I think it's fair for Isar to claim to be launching the first commercial European space rocket since the program to build the rocket wasn't initiated by a state space agency or fulfilling a state agency contract by doing the initial flight.
- echoangle 2y ago
  Not only Airbus though. 74% of Arianespace is owned by ArianeGroup, which is 50% Airbus and 50% Safran.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

IncreasePosts 2y ago

Russia launches from Baikonur in Kazakhstan, which is in Asia (per the traditional Europe-Asia boundary of the Ural river). Also, most EU launches are from French Guiana, which is a part of France and therefore a part of the EU, so there have been commercial space launches from the EU(the polity), just not from Europe(the landmass).

zamadatix 2y ago
Russia has the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Europe and has launched from there before (and is still active), just not via commercial launch provider AFAIK.
a3w 2y ago
Russia also used to launch french guiana. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_at_the_Guiana_Space_Centre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_at_the_Guiana_Space_Cent... Was nice having world peace from a NATO's point of view in 2011-2013. Russian launches continued till third wave of Ukraine territory conflicts in 2022, says wikipedia.
- oskarkk 2y ago
  The nice thing is that even today, some American astronauts are flying to the ISS from Russia on Russian rockets, and some Russian astronauts are flying from the USA on American rockets. They're doing that for redundancy of getting their people to space, and for the general cooperation.
hangonhn 2y ago
What did Russia/USSR pick Kazakhstan at the launching point? Was it the closest they can get to the equator?
- fuoqi 2y ago
  The place was originally selected because of the combination of several factors: - Closeness to the equator. - Ease of access by rail. - Lack of populated/foreign areas at the path of falling booster stages. - Relative closeness to production centers. - Far enough from borders and small population around the site to make spying harder (remember that in the early days it was also an ICBM launch site). Other central Asian Soviet republics were farther south, but much worse on the other factors. Russia simply continues to use it because of the existing infrastructure and tries to gradually move its civilian space program to the new Vostochny Cosmodrome.