Preparing the Soyuz for launch

[Mitchz95]

Found a cool video of the Soyuz rocket being moved to the launchpad in preparation for its launch on Tuesday.

[CaptainKipard]

Sweet video. I've always wondered about why the American and Russian rockets are deployed differently. Russian way seems easier and less accident prone.

[goldenpeach]

Little interesting fact: the soyouz are built horizontally because of the cold war: a giant tube is way more easy to hide than a very tall building.

[Voidryder]

That was just cool. Thanks for sharing.

[goldenpeach]

I made a quick source search but wasn't able to find one.

The only source I can recall(and this where I got the fact in the first place) is a french magazine( science et vie junior) and I don't remember which copy it was(sorry).

If I find the time(and motivation ) I will try to find a source.

[Tex]

I'm hoping to see the launch live... I'll have to check the times and hopefully there will be no delays.

[bigdad84]

Little interesting fact: the soyouz are built horizontally because of the cold war: a giant tube is way more easy to hide than a very tall building.

That's super neat! amazing how they hid so many secrets back in the day. They're probably still some hidden things we don't know.

[Idobox]

That's super neat! amazing how they hid so many secrets back in the day. They're probably still some hidden things we don't know.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_map_images_with_missing_or_unclear_data#Russia

They sure do. The Russian government asked google maps and bing to blur several areas where there isn't any known sensitive installations. So now we know they are hiding something there, but not sure what (also, major world powers all have access to high resolutions pictures of these areas, so it's something they don't want the general public and smaller nations to know, but accept big countries to know).

Sweet video. I've always wondered about why the American and Russian rockets are deployed differently. Russian way seems easier and less accident prone.

It is actually more difficult to build a rocket horizontally, because the load is distributed very differently and changes quite a lot when you put it upright.

It's commonly used on missiles because you want to move them around by train or truck to either get them closer to your target, or make it more difficult for the enemy to destroy them. And the Soyuz rocket, like many rockets, is derived from an ICBM.

I have trouble finding a list, but some American rockets are also built horizontally, for example the Minotaur family.

/Edit

found this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizontal_Integration_Facility

The delta IV appears to be partially built horizontally, and the SpaceX rockets, as well as the Antares are fully built horizontally.

Edited March 25, 2014 by Idobox

[Kryten]

No ancestor of the Soyuz was ever designed to be mobile, even the R-7; the longest journey they've ever undergone is the journey from the assembly building to the pad. Horizontal assembly is used because it involves lower facilities cost, makes transport cheaper (think shuttle's transport crawler V. pretty standard trains for Proton and Soyuz) and makes the rocket easier to access.

[Dunbaratu]

The soviet style of transporting sideways and then standing up onto the pad always made more sense to me. The NASA style necessitates a VERY slow crawling trip to the launchpad at a fraction of a mile an hour, spending all day to make the short trip there, so it doesn't tip over. It seems a very dangerous fragile method and I'm surprised it hasn't gone wrong yet.

[Jank]