SpaceX ahead of “Roscosmos” on the number of successful launches in 2017
As of December 25, the private American company SpaceX has overtaken the Russian state Corporation “Roskosmos” the number of successful launches in 2017. Statistics on space launches was noticed by American astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell.
The scientist noted that in the past year, the United States just spent 30 launches (all of them were successful), of which 18 have at SpaceX. The same number of starts — 18 without regard to launches from Kourou — spent Russia, and successful of them were only 17.
In 2017, Russia’s number of successful launches can still catch up with SpaceX, because on December 26, the start the Russian-Ukrainian rocket “Zenit” with the first Angolan satellite, Angosat-1. The launch has been repeatedly postponed, earlier it was planned to run heavy “Hangar” or “the Proton”.
Rocket “Soyuz-2.1 b” with the upper stage Fregat and payload (19 satellites, including 17 foreign) was launched on 28 November from the Russian cosmodrome East in 08:41 Moscow time. Late due to a problem with the upper stage, the head part of the carrier were lost.