The year 2017 saw a total of 90 known orbital launch attempts from seven nations and space ports in eight different countries. 2017 had the second most orbital launch attempts of any year in the current century, short of 92 launches in 2014 and showing a slight increase from 2016 that had 85 known launch attempts.
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The Gas Dynamic Shield of a Dnepr rocket launched in 2014 re-entered the atmosphere on December 29, 2017.
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Russia’s Progress MS-06 cargo spacecraft closed out a mission of over six months on Thursday, departing the International Space Station after a 194-day stay and firing its main engine to drop out of orbit for a fiery re-entry
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Successfully placed into orbit by a Zenit-3F rocket, Angola’s first communications satellite appears to have hit major trouble shortly after separation from its launch vehicle Wednesday morning following a nine-hour climb into a drift orbit over the equator.
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A Russian-Ukrainian Zenit rocket lifted off from Site 45/1, Baikonur Cosmodrome at 19:00:03 UTC on December 26, 2017, carrying into orbit the AngoSat 1 communications satellite for the Angolan Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Technology.
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A Russian-Ukrainian Zenit rocket lifted off from Site 45/1, Baikonur Cosmodrome at 19:00:03 UTC on December 26, 2017, carrying into orbit the AngoSat 1 communications satellite for the Angolan Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Technology
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The thunder of a Zenit rocket returned to Kazakhstan’s Baikonur Cosmodrome Tuesday night for the first time in two years as the Russian-Ukrainian booster made its long-awaited return to lift Angola’s first communications satellite into Geostationary Orbit.
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Planet’s Flock 2E-9 Earth-imaging satellite re-entered the atmosphere on December 25, 2017 – decaying 19 months after being released from the International Space Station to join Planet’s orbiting constellation of Doves that image the entire Earth at least once per day.
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Two days after placing an Earth-imaging satellite into orbit, China was in action again on Monday for the country’s fourth launch of the month and the final expected Chinese mission in 2017, involving a Long March 2C rocket lifting the third group of Yaogan-30 electromagnetic-sensing satellites into orbit.
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The second spacecraft of the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) – run jointly by NASA and the German Aerospace Center – re-entered the atmosphere on Christmas Eve 2017
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Iridium 6 re-entered the atmosphere on December 23, 2017 after over 20 years in orbit as part of the original Iridium Communications Constellation, a low-orbiting satellite system for global communications including voice and point-to-point data services via 66 active satellites in six orbital planes.
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A Russian-Ukrainian Zenit booster was moved to its Baikonur Cosmodrome Launch Pad on Sunday as the first of its kind to take flight in over two years, starting what is hoped to be Zenit’s resurrection
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Japan’s H-IIA rocket thundered off from the Tanegashima Space Center at 1:26:22 UTC on December 23, 2017 with the GCOM-C climate observatory and the SLATS Super-Low Altitude Test Satellite.
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Residents in Southern California were given a remarkable show in the late afternoon skies on Friday when SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket soared toward orbit with the fourth group of Iridium-NEXT communications satellites
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China sent the second satellite of the LKW constellation into orbit on Saturday via a Long March 2D rocket, coming less than three weeks after the first LKW satellite reached orbit in what observers suspected was the first launch in a new series of reconnaissance spacecraft flying under the cover of land surveying missions.
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Japan’s H-IIA rocket leapt off its sea-side launch pad on Tanegashima Island at 10:26 a.m. local time, 1:26 UTC on Saturday, soaring into orbit with a high-profile climate observation satellite and a technology demonstration spacecraft set for a mission orbiting the edge of the atmosphere to develop previously unused orbital real estate.
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Japan’s H-IIA rocket thundered off from the Tanegashima Space Center at 1:26:22 UTC on December 23, 2017 with the GCOM-C climate observatory and the SLATS Super-Low Altitude Test Satellite.
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