Russia set a record for the number of trouble-free space launches in a row. Start on May 28, Soyuz-2.1B launch vehicles with British satellites OneWeb became the 59th consecutive successful launch, which was never ever in the history of modern Russia, RIA Novosti reports.
So, on the night of May 29, 36 communication satellites were brought to target orbits with the help of the Russian acceleration block “Frigate”. This agency reported the head of the Roskosmos Corporation Dmitry Rogozin.
It is noted that the past record of Russia out of 58 successful triggers in a row was established in the early 90s of the last century: from February 1992 to February 1993. The beginning of a series of current successful starts was made in 2018, after an accident in the separation of the Soyuz-FG rocket steps. Then the flight to the International Space Station (ISS) had to be interrupted, and the astronauts Alexey Ovchinin and Nick Heig returned to Earth.
At the same time, the absolute record was installed during the USSR. So, from January 1983 to November 1984, the country performed 185 trouble-free starts in a row.
Earlier, the launch of the Soyuz-2.1b carrier missile with the Frigate accelerated unit and 36 Satellites of OneWeb, scheduled for Friday, May 28, was transferred. It was noted that such a decision was made for technical reasons.