R-7 and Soyuz tribute (1957–today)
R-7 and Soyuz explained
R-7 and Soyuz in 62 seconds (Short)
The first satellite, the first human in space, the first woman in space and the first spacewalk all left Earth on one family of rocket. The R-7 was ordered in 1954 as Sergei Korolev's intercontinental missile: a core stage with four strap-on boosters, all lit on the ground. Its first launch, on May 15, 1957, failed. Its first success came that August, and on October 4, 1957, an R-7 put Sputnik 1 into orbit.
With upper stages added it became Vostok, which carried Yuri Gagarin on April 12, 1961, then Voskhod and Soyuz. On December 25, 2024, a Soyuz-2.1b flew the family's 2,000th launch, more than any other orbital rocket family. Soyuz still carries crews and Progress cargo ships to the International Space Station, and for nearly nine years after the Shuttle retired it was the only way there.
R-7 / Soyuz at a glance
- First launch
- May 15, 1957 (R-7 test, failed)
- Sputnik 1
- October 4, 1957
- Vostok 1, Gagarin
- April 12, 1961
- 2,000th launch
- December 25, 2024 (Soyuz-2.1b, Resurs-P No. 5)
- Layout
- core + four boosters, 20 main combustion chambers
- Launch sites
- Baikonur, Plesetsk, Vostochny
- Crewed launch aborts
- three (1975, 1983, 2018); every crew survived
Crews saved
- Soyuz 18a, April 5, 1975: a staging failure; Vasily Lazarev and Oleg Makarov landed safely in the Altai mountains.
- Soyuz T-10-1, September 26, 1983: a fire on the pad; the escape tower pulled Vladimir Titov and Gennady Strekalov away seconds before the explosion.
- Soyuz MS-10, October 11, 2018: a booster struck the core at separation; abort motors on the fairing carried Nick Hague and Alexey Ovchinin to a safe landing.
In memory
Four cosmonauts died on Soyuz spacecraft.
Soyuz 1
April 24, 1967On the new spacecraft's first crewed flight, a solar panel failed to open and the flight was cut short. Coming home, the main parachute did not deploy and the reserve tangled. Komarov was the first person to die during a spaceflight.
Crew: Vladimir Komarov
Soyuz 11
June 30, 1971After more than three weeks aboard Salyut 1, the first crew to live on a space station headed home. A pressure valve opened when the modules separated and the cabin lost its air. They are the only people to have died in space. Soyuz crews have worn pressure suits ever since.
Crew: Georgy Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkov, Viktor Patsayev
Keep exploring
Sources
- NASA: Soyuz MS-10 launch abort statement
- TASS: 2,000th R-7 launch
- Grokipedia: R-7 (rocket family)
- Grokipedia: Soyuz 1
- Grokipedia: Soyuz 11
Photos: public domain. Our videos: @t0rockets.