Number of orbital launches by Russia, 1957-2025. Notable decline after Cold War period.
Close to it's lowest level since early 1960s.
Details: https://spacestatsonline.com/launches/country/rus
Other countries: https://spacestatsonline.com/launches/country
by firefly-metaverse
8 Comments
Does this include Russian tankers who were launched into space while visiting Ukraine?
Or would those be Ukrainian launches? 🤔
We care about this terrorist state, why?
SpaceX launches as much mass to orbit in 10 days as this wanabe superpower in a yearÂ
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The reduction of launches from the mid 1980s is not an itself indicator of decline. Instead, it shows the soviets finally changing their photo reconnaissance satellites from photographic-return to electro-optical (which have much longer orbital life).
US launches show a similar decline (masked a bit by an uptick in US commercial launch activity), but earlier. KH-9 required fewer launches (because it had 4 return vehicles) and KH-11 (from the mid 1970s) was electro-optical, and remained operational for several years.
The difference of 60s-80s vs later years are mostly attributed to improvements in electronics and reliability
Meanwhile the US is setting a new record each year.
If humanity hyper focused on that we would have colonized the Moon by now.