The Molniya were Soviet communication satellites operating from an inclined highly elliptical earth orbit of 500 km × 40000 km with 12 hour period for coverage of high northern latitudes.
The Molniya was a modification of the well-known R-7 Semyorka rocket and had four stages. The 8K78 resulted from a crash program by the Korolev Bureau to develop a booster for launching planetary probes. A larger third stage was added along with a fourth stage (Blok L) that was designed to fire in-orbit to send the payload out of LEO. The basic R-7 core was also structurally strengthened and given more powerful engines. A rushed development produced multiple malfunctions of the upper stages, which led to its being replaced by the improved Molniya-M in 1964, but there were enough 8K78s left to continue flying them into 1967.
The Strategic Rocket Forces of the Russian Federation are a separate-troops branch of the Russian Armed Forces that control Russia's land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).
WIKIGeostationary communications satellite built by Airbus Defense and Space and based on the Eurostar Neo platform for Arabsat.
The Kondor-FKA is a small civilian radar Earth observation satellite designed by NPO Mashinostroyeniya as a civilian counterpart to the Kondor-E sate…
Last two operational (TROPICS-06 & TROPICS-07) satellites for NASA's Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation Structure and Storm Intensity with a…
Virgin Galactic return to space mission ahead of the first commercial flight.
Third flight of the KSLV-II "Nuri" launch vehicle, carrying NEXTSat-2 as well as SNIPE A through D.
Progress resupply mission to the International Space Station.
This is a Crew Dragon flight for a private company Axiom Space. The mission will carry a professionally trained commander alongside three private ast…
Macau Science Satellite-1 (MUST-1A/B) are 2 magnetosphere research satellites from the Macau University of Science and Technology (MUST) aiming to st…
5 spare satellites for the Iridium NEXT constellation and 16 satellites for the OneWeb constellation (15 of current generation and 1 demonstration sa…
A batch of satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.