Infrastructure
Launch
Full Story: 2020 in Launches: Successes, Failures, and Everything in Between
This was the year of the partial success. From the LauncherOne demo to the maiden flight of the KZ-11, 2020 saw explosions and anomalies around the world. Companies such as…
Infrastructure: Spaceports – TSRQ4 2019
Spaceport upgrades and new spaceport development are at an all-time high, with 40 active launch sites around the globe, 10 more in development in the United States, Sweden, Australia and…
Infrastructure: Orbital Launch Vehicle Overview – TSRQ2 2019
Introduction |Throughout 2018, nations, multinational organizations, industry, and academia launched payloads and experiments into orbit and on suborbital flights. Six nations, including the European Space Agency (ESA), continued, and in…
Infrastructure: Space Infrastructure – TSRQ1 2018
Introduction | Space infrastructure, like its terrestrial counterpart, is an invisible backbone for services used by people all over the world. Like terrestrial infrastructure, space infrastructure is increasingly relied upon…
2017 – Russia Human Launch – Snapshot
Russia remained the only nation to launch humans to orbit during 2017, using its Soyuz launch vehicle and capsule. The continued depression of Russian launch activity during the year did…
2017 – U.S. Suborbital – Snapshot
Many countries and organizations have floated plans for human suborbital spaceflight. However, there are very few building suborbital launch vehicles for this purpose, and even fewer launching them. Aside from…
2017 – U.S. Human Launch – Snapshot
The last U.S. human space launch was conducted in 2011. NASA now relies on Russia’s Soyuz space launch system, paying hundreds of millions of dollars to transport U.S. astronauts to…
2017 – European Spaceports – Snapshot
The European Space Agency (ESA) uses a single spaceport, the Guiana Space Centre (CSG) in Kourou, French Guiana. Orbital launch provider Arianespace carried out all 11 CSG launches during 2017,…
2017 – Chinese Spaceports – Snapshot
In 2017, China continued using its four spaceports for orbital launches: Jiuquan, Taiyuan, Wenchang, and Xichang. The spaceports were involved in a total of 18 launch attempts. Jiuquan and Xichang…
2017 – Russian Spaceports – Snapshot
During 2017, Russia continued operating three orbital launch spaceports within its territory: Dombarovskiy, Plesetsk, and Vostochny. A fourth spaceport, Baikonur Cosmodrome, is Russia’s primary orbital launch site and is located…