Overview
The internationally accepted definition of a spaceflight is any flight which crosses the Kármán line, 100 kilometres above sea level. The first spaceflight launch of the year was that of a Delta IV Heavy, carrying the USA-202 ELINT satellite, which launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 02:47 GMT on 18 January. This was also the first orbital launch of the year.
On 2 February Iran conducted its first successful orbital launch, when a Safir was used to place the Omid satellite into low Earth orbit.
At 16:56 GMT on 10 February, the first major collision between two satellites in orbit occurred, resulting in the destruction of Kosmos 2251 and Iridium 33, launched in 1993 and 1997 respectively. Up until the collision, Iridium 33 was operational, and an active part of the Iridium network of satellites, whilst Kosmos 2251 was an inactive piece of space junk.
On 25 August, the Russo- South Korean Naro-1 rocket made its maiden flight on 25 August, marking South Korea's first involvement in conducting a satellite launch attempt, however the rocket failed to reach orbit after its payload fairing malfunctioned.
The first flight of the SpaceX Falcon 9 carrier rocket was scheduled to occur in November, but was delayed to February 2010 to allow more time for preparations. The SpaceX Dragon, a commercial unmanned logistics spacecraft which was developed as part of NASA's COTS programme, was also scheduled to make its first flight in 2009, however its launch has also slipped to 2010 as a result of knock-on delays. The first H-II Transfer Vehicle, HTV-1, was successfully launched on the maiden flight of the H-IIB carrier rocket on 10 September. The first Swiss satellite, SwissCube-1, was launched on 23 September aboard a PSLV.
On 18 December, the Ariane 5GS made its final flight, delivering the Helios-IIB satellite into a sun-synchronous orbit. The last orbital launch of the year was conducted eleven days later, on 29 December, when a Proton-M with a Briz-M upper stage launched the DirecTV-12 satellite.
Read more about this topic: 2009 In Spaceflight