Russia. The Rockot (diamond) launcher is derived from the Soviet SS-19 ICBM (Vladimir Chelomei’s UR-100). In the USSR, there were 360 SS-19 Stilettos ready in silos, and another 144 were launched as tests. The first orbital mission took place on December 26, 1994. It launched 2 tons into LEO for $14 million. It used UDMH (hypergolic hydrazine). The launch sites at Baikonur were all silos, which caused enormous noise and vibration during launch. They were therefore moved to Plesetsk. In 1995, Khrunichev formed a company with Daimler-Benz, called Eurockot, and then Astrium GmbH, a shareholder of Arianspace, joined in 2000. It can reignite its final stage six times, deploying multiple satellites. It will be retired after the last launch on December 26, 2019, after 34 launches and 31 successes.
