Launch Record

Launch Record

Rockot and its variants have an extensive and successful launch heritage. The Rockot launch vehicle family consisting of the SS-19 (Rockot first/ second stage), Rockot K and Rockot KM vehicles has to date completed over 150 launches since the first test flights in the early 1970s. In the early 1990s three Rockot K test launches were conducted successfully from facilities at the Baikonur launch site.

2000
Commercial Demonstration Flight (CDF) carrying two satellite simulators. This launch marked the first flight of Rockot from Plesetsk and the first mission conducted by Eurockot.

2002
The joint GRACE mission of Germany's Aerospace Centre DLR and the USA's NASA in March 2002 with the launch of two satellites.
Iridium IS-2 replacement mission in June 2002 with the launch of two satellites.

2003
The Multiple Orbit Mission (MOM) for US, Canadian, European and Japanese space institutes and universities in June 2003 with eight customer satellites.
SERVIS - 1 mission for the Japanese government in October 2003.

2005
A Rockot KM launch vehicle successfully placed the 750 kg Russian Monitor-E spacecraft into the correct 97.5 deg Sun-Synchronous Orbit on 26 August at 22.34 hours Moscow Summer Time (18:34 hours UTC). This particular launch was not conducted under the auspices of Eurockot as it was an internal Russian affair. However the vehicle flown is the identical configuration as used for Eurockot commercial launches. This particular launch was undertaken by the Russian Space Forces together with Khrunichev personnel from the Plesetsk launch site in northern Russia. The remote sensing spacecraft Monitor-E is designed and manufactured by Khrunichev Space Center.

Eurockot suffered its first launch failure when the CryoSat mission for the European Space Agency failed on October 08, 2005.

The failure investigation conducted by the Russian State Commission and Failure Review Board subsequently established that a wrongly programmed time-line had caused the loss of the mission when the separation of the second and third (upper) stage did not occur and the stack including CryoSat reentered the atmosphere.

2006

The Republic of Korea's KOMPSAT-2 satellite was successfully launched by Eurockot for the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) on July 28, 2006.

2008

On May 23, 2008 at 19:20 h local time a Rockot launch vehicle with a Breeze-KM upper stage successfully launched three Russian federal satellites together with the additional "Jubileiny" payload from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome. All four satellites were precisely injected into a Low Earth Orbit with a high inclination.

2009

Eurockot has successfully launched the GOCE environmental satellite for the European Space Agency on March 17, 2009.

On July 6, 2009 at 01:26 UTC a Rockot launch vehicle with a Breeze-KM upper stage successfully launched three Russian federal satellites from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome. The satellites were put into target orbit at 03:10 UTC.

On November 9, 2009 Eurockot also launched SMOS-Proba-2 successfully. SMOS is the first mission that will provide global maps of Soil Moisture as well as of Ocean Salinity using the newly developed MIRAS instrument that is capable to observe both variables. Proba-2 was launched as secondary payload into the same orbital plane but into a lower orbit altitude.


2010

SERVIS-2 was launched successfully  on June 02, 2010 at 01:59.01hrs UTC from the Rockot launch pad at Plesetsk Cosmodrome for the Institute for Unmanned Space Experiment Free Flyer (USEF) of Tokyo, Japan. A Rockot launched SERVIS-2 into a sun-synchronous orbit of 1200 km altitude, corresponding to an inclination of 100.4 degrees. The mass of SERVIS-2 was 740 kg. The interface between the Breeze upper stage and the spacecraft consisted of a Khrunichev Space Center - developed conical adapter which was equipped with an EADS CASA Espacio 937 mm clampband.
 
SERVIS-2 is a follow-on mission to Servis-1 which was launched on a Rockot in October 2003. USEF is using SERVIS-2 to establish parts evaluation and equipment design guidelines to utilize commercial-off-the-shelf parts (COTS) in a space environment with the eventual aim of reducing the cost of spacecraft. The mission duration of SERVIS-2 is one year.




EUROCKOT Launch Services GmbH
P.O. Box 28 61 46 - D-28361 Bremen
Phone +49 421 539-65 01 - Fax + 49 421 539-65 00
eMail eurockot@astrium.eads.net
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