2008 in Spaceflight - Overview

Overview

The internationally accepted definition of a spaceflight is any flight which crosses the Kármán line, 100 kilometres above sea level. The first recorded spaceflight launch of the year occurred on 11 January, when a Black Brant was launched on a suborbital trajectory from White Sands, with the LIDOS ultraviolet astronomy payload. This was followed by the first orbital launch of the year on 15 January, by a Sea Launch Zenit-3SL, with the Thuraya 3 communications satellite. The launch marked the return to flight for Sea Launch following the explosion of a Zenit-3SL on the launch pad the previous January during an attempt to launch the NSS-8 satellite.

Five carrier rockets made their maiden flights in 2008; the Ariane 5ES, Long March 3C, Zenit-3SLB, PSLV-XL, and the operational version of the Falcon 1, with an uprated Merlin-1C engine. These were all derived from existing systems. The Blue Sparrow and Sejjil missiles also conducted their maiden flights, and the ATK Launch Vehicle made its only flight, but was destroyed by range safety after it went off course. In November, the baseline Proton-M was retired in favour of the Enhanced variant, first launched in 2007.

The first Vietnamese and Venezuelan satellites, Vinasat-1 and Venesat-1 respectively, were launched in 2008, while a failed Iranian launch was reported to have been that country's first indigenous orbital launch attempt. In September, SpaceX conducted the first successful orbital launch of a privately developed and funded liquid-fuelled carrier rocket, when the fourth Falcon 1 launched RatSat, following previous failures in 2006, 2007, and August.