Don’t want to belittle the achievement but they launched it as in „had it launched by the commercial launch provider SpaceX“, not on a self-developed rocket as it sounds like on the first read.
replies(10):
Don’t want to belittle the achievement but they launched it as in „had it launched by the commercial launch provider SpaceX“, not on a self-developed rocket as it sounds like on the first read.
Of course, even Europe cannot launch cheaply anymore. Arianespace is crawling to space; they are left for dead. The only serious players are the US and China. It's reached a point where it has become like trying to manufacture a state-of-the-art 5nm chip in a developing nation: possible, but at an absurd cost. You might achieve an initial parametric yield of only 10%, meaning only a tiny fraction of the chips coming off the line meet the basic electrical specifications. Even then, the functional yield (the percentage that actually performs the intended computation correctly at the target speed) might be even lower, say 5%. You'd be throwing away 95 out of every 100 chips, and the cost per usable die would be astronomical due to the sheer expense of acquiring and maintaining the lithography equipment, cleanroom facilities, and specialized expertise – resources that are heavily concentrated in a few leading nations and require years, if not decades, to build from scratch.
> The only serious players are the US and China
Forgot one
Luckily for you, the linked site has upcoming schedules to trivially look this up. India has 6 launches upcoming in 2025, Rosskosmos has 8 and Russian military has one more. So Russia is launching 50% more than India in 2025.
"Money doesn't change hands for Russia launching astronauts or NASA launching cosmonauts"
did you see my parent comment or not??? I am not trying to question their ability for them get to space, it doesn't matter if you CAN go to space but you didn't have money for it
its clear that NASA and Roscosmos collaboration days is numbered and would not continue in the future because geo politic