August 15, 2026
The affected russian Progress Rocket and Space Centre produced the main russian Soyuz-2 launch vehicles, which were used to launch not only the russian Rassvet satellites, an analogue of Starlink, but also the vast majority of other military satellites
On the night of Saturday, August 15, the Defense Forces of Ukraine launched a series of long-range strikes on russian military facilities. According to available, yet unofficial information, a successful attack was carried out on a key russian enterprise in the space industry – the Progress Rocket and Space Centre in Samara.
This is reported by footage from local residents, and the local authorities also acknowledged the destruction of an unnamed industrial facility.
https://t.me/exilenova_plus/28865
Before that, at about 04:00 am local time (03:00 am Kyiv time), a missile alert was declared in the Samara region. At about 03:40 local sources reported the characteristic sound of a jet aircraft flying over, a powerful explosion and a strong fire. At the same time, based on some videos, it is possible to conclude that there were two missiles.
Fire Point Chief Designer Denis Shtilerman published footage of the launches of two FP-5 “Flamingo” cruise missiles.
Having studied one of the available photos, it is possible to try to clarify the location of the impact, which falls precisely on the Progress Space Rocket Center.
Although for final certainty it is worth waiting for satellite images, it seems that the Armed Forces of Ukraine struck at the “bottleneck” of the entire Russian military space program, including the plan to create its own analogue of Starlink – the Rassvet satellites.
The fact is that it is the Progress Space Rocket Center that manufactures the Soyuz family of launch vehicles, in particular the Soyuz-2.1b, on which the Rassvet satellites have already been launched into space twice. It is also these launch vehicles that are the main means of launching all other russian military satellites.
This enterprise, located on the territory of the Aviakor aircraft factory, is actually a single interconnected complex of workshops about 1 km long. The entire technological cycle of creating Soyuz launch vehicles takes place in them using the flow method.
At the same time, most likely, the blow fell on a key production area, in the western part of the complex, where the final stages of production take place.
This means that not only the production itself, unique production equipment and tools, but also all Soyuz launch vehicles that were in the middle and final stages of production could have been destroyed at the same time.
In general, since 2022, russia has carried out 6-8 launches of Soyuz-2.1b launch vehicles per year. And they were distributed between all space programs and commercial launches, among which the absolute majority were missions of the so-called Ministry of Defense of the russian federation.
If the effectiveness of the strike is confirmed, this will mean the cessation of almost all Russian space programs. Because all that the Russians will have left is the launch vehicles already delivered to the cosmodromes, of which there may be only a few units, as well as the well-known long-term Angara launch vehicle, which is assembled in Omsk at the Polet plant. Since 2022, only 9 units of these missiles have been launched (2 – heavy-class Angara-A5 launch vehicles, 7 – two-stage light-class Angara-1.2 launch vehicles).
“At the same time, most likely, the blow fell on a key production area, in the western part of the complex, where the final stages of production take place.”
I hope this is true. Hitting the final stages of a production is the most destructive. It destroys many assembled sub components inside a construct, and thus raises the costs and assembly time tremendously.
Level it, just to be sure. Engineers too…