Russian space industry grows more pragmatic

Last year was not marked by any breakthrough achievements in Russian space exploration. The country kept its world-leading position in the number of space launches. A total of 24 launches were performed: four from Plesetsk in Russia and the rest from Kazakhstan’s Baikonur. This list excludes the three launches of Russian-Ukrainian Zenit-3SL rockets from the Sea Launch international platform and the two Soyuz-2ST launches from the EASA Kourou spaceport. Russian-made launch vehicles orbited a total of 33 spacecraft last year, including nine under foreign commercial contracts.

Russia’s major 2012 achievements included the launch of two same-type new-generation Earth remote sensing satellites, the Russian Canopus-V and the Belarusian BelKA. It is the first time the Russian space industry has managed to build advanced small-sized spacecraft on a non-pressurized platform, carrying an electro-optical ground-imaging system with a spatial resolution of about 2 m. Orbited together with these two satellites was the first Zond-PP spacecraft under the MKA-FKI program to create microsatellites for fundamental space research. These three craft may not set a new world standard for reduced size and mass, but for Russia they signify a certain technological milestone.