Less Proton carrier rockets launched from Baikonur in 2016

BAIKONUR KAZINFORM Year 2016 had perhaps the smallest number of launches from Baikonur cosmodrome, Kazinform correspondent reports.

11 launches were made from the cosmodrome in 2016, and another is set for late December.

In 2016, Roscosmos launched 8 Soyuz carrier rockets from Baikonur, 7 of them under the International Space Station program (ISS).

In March 2016, Soyuz 2-1B was successfully launched, carrying an advanced Resurs P No.3 remote sensing satellite.

 

Also, 4 manned crew transfer vehicles were launched in March, July, October and November 2016 under the ISS program. 3 Progress transport cargo spacecraft were launched on Soyuz 2.1a and Soyuz-U. Unfortunately, the recent launch of Progress MS-04 on 1 December 2016 was unsuccessful due to problems of the third stage of the carrier rocket Soyuz -I.

In 2016, Baikonur has seen only three Proton-M launches. French satellite Eutelsat-9B was launched in January.  Exomars 2016 spacecraft (a joint project of ESA and Roscosmos) and  the U.S. satellite Intelsat DLA 2 were launched from Baikonur in March and June respectively.

 

The last launch of Proton-M (carrying US satellite EchoStar-21) for this year is scheduled for December 28th.

There will be 12 launches from Baikonur in 2016 in total that is far less than ever before. 

This reduction  is applied mainly in regard to toxic carrier rocket Proton-M, as stipulated by interstate agreements on environmental safety of launches from Baikonur.