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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 Fre

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.

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.