Soyuz-2

The Soyuz-2, with the GRAU index 14A14, is a series of Russian expendable medium-lift launch vehicles and the seventh major iteration of the Soyuz rocket family. It was developed and produced by the Progress Rocket Space Centre in Samara and introduced in 2004, with a digital flight control system, improved engines and larger payload fairings, so that it could be launched from fixed platforms. The Soyuz-2.1a, the base model, flew first on 8 November 2004 on a suborbital test from Plesetsk, and the Soyuz-2.1b, whose third stage has a more powerful RD-0124 engine, followed in December 2006. A derivative, the Soyuz-ST, was adapted for the Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana. Soyuz-2 launches from Baikonur, Plesetsk and, since 2016, Vostochny, usually with the Fregat upper stage or the cheaper Volga stage for higher orbits, and it carried its first crew, Soyuz MS-16, to the International Space Station on 9 April 2020. By the time of the article it had made 170 launches, 165 of them successful, and gradually replaced the Molniya-M, Soyuz-U and Soyuz-FG.