What is "soyuz"

Soyuz (, meaning "union", GRAU index 11A511) is a family of expendable launch systems developed by OKB-1, and manufactured by Progress State Research and Production Rocket Space Center in Samara, Russia. The Soyuz launch vehicle is the most frequently used and reliable launch vehicle in the world.

After the U.S. Space Shuttle program ended in 2011, Soyuz rockets became the only launch vehicle able to transport astronauts to the International Space Station.

The Soyuz vehicles are used as the launcher for the manned Soyuz spacecraft as part of the Soyuz program, as well as to launch unmanned Progress supply spacecraft to the International Space Station and for commercial launches marketed and operated by Starsem and Arianespace. All Soyuz rockets use RP-1 and liquid oxygen (LOX) propellant, with the exception of the Soyuz-U2, which used Syntin, a variant of RP-1, with LOX. In the United States, it has the Library of Congress designation A-2. The Soyuz family is a subset of the R-7 family.

Soyuz ( , Union) is a series of spacecraft designed for the Soviet space programme by the Korolyov Design Bureau (now RKK Energia) in the 1960s that remains in service today. The Soyuz succeeded the Voskhod spacecraft and was originally built as part of the Soviet Manned Lunar programme. The Soyuz spacecraft is launched on a Soyuz rocket, the most frequently used and most reliable launch vehicle in the world to date. The Soyuz rocket design is based on the Vostok launcher, which in turn was based on the 8K74 or R-7A Semyorka, a Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile. All Soyuz spacecraft are launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Soyuz (Cyrillic: "Союз") is Russian for "Union", and was often used as an abbreviation for the " Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" (Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik) during the Communist era.

It is also the name for the Soyuz spacecraft, now the main vehicle used in missions and crew transfers to and from the International Space Station since NASA retired the Space Shuttle Program in 2011.

In English, the term is left untranslated in the names of several Soviet-related concepts. These include:

• Soyuz programme, an originally Soviet (now Russian) human spaceflight programme
  • The Soyuz (spacecraft), used in that program
  • The Soyuz (rocket), which was initially used to launch that spacecraft
    • Its derivatives, the Soyuz (rocket family)
  • The Soyuz Launch Complex in Kourou, French Guiana
• The Soyuz station, established by members of the Soviet Antarctic Expeditions in Mac. Robertson Land in Antarctica
• The Soyuz (faction) in the Congress of Soviets, 1990–1991

• SS Albert Ballin, a German-built ship recovered and renamed Soyuz by the USSR
• Soyuz (comics), a team of Russian superheroes from DC Comics

• , a media company in Russia

The Party "Soyuz" is a national political party of Ukraine that is mostly based in Crimea. It was registered in June 1997 under a registration number 867.

The party won 1 seat in the Ukrainian parliament in the 2012 Ukrainian parliamentary election. In the 2014 parliamentary election the party won no parliamentary seats.

The Soyuz (, meaning "union", GRAU index 11A511) was a Soviet expendable carrier rocket designed in the 1960s by OKB-1 and manufactured by State Aviation Plant No. 1 in Kuybyshev, Soviet Union. It was commissioned to launch Soyuz spacecraft as part of the Soviet human spaceflight program, first with 8 unmanned test flights, followed by the first 19 manned launches. The original Soyuz also propelled four test flights of the improved Soyuz 7K-T capsule between 1972 and 1974. In total it flew 30 successful missions over 10 years and suffered two failures.

The Soyuz 11A511 type, a member of the R-7 family of rockets. first flew in 1966. Derived from the Voskhod 11A57 type, It was a two-stage rocket, with four liquid-fuelled strap-on boosters clustered around the first stage, with a Block I second stage. The new, uprated core stage and strap-ons became standard for all R-7 derived launch vehicles to replace the numerous older variants in use on the 8A92, 11A57, and 8K78M types.

Starting in 1973, the original Soyuz rocket was gradually superseded by the Soyuz-U derivative type, which became the world's most prolific launcher, flying hundreds of missions over 43 years until its retirement scheduled for 2016. Other direct variants were Soyuz-L for low Earth orbit tests of the LK lunar lander (3 flights) and Soyuz-M built for a quickly abandoned military spacecraft and used for reconnaissance satellites instead (8 flights).

The aborted Soyuz 18-1 launch in 1975 was the final manned flight of the 11A511 and as it occurred shortly before the ASTP mission, the United States requested that the Soviets provide details about this failure. They stated that Soyuz 19 would be using the newer 11A5511U booster model (i.e. Soyuz-U) so that the Soyuz 18-1 malfunction had no bearing on it.

Soyuz rockets were assembled horizontally in the MIK Building at the launch site. The rocket was then rolled out, and erected on the launch pad.

Soyuz (Russian: Союз, translated as 'Union') was a faction in the Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR. The faction was critical of Perestroika and liberal reforms; it was opposed to de-centralization of the Soviet Union. The group was founded on 14 February 1990, and its leaders included Viktor Alksnis (from Latvian SSR), Yegor Ligachev, Nikolai Petrushenko, Yevgeny Kogan (Estonian SSR), and Anatoly Checkoyev (Georgian SSR, South Ossetian autonomous region). The faction claimed to have 500 members in the USSR Supreme Soviet. The group managed to oust Soviet foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze for 'giving up' Eastern Europe, in February 1991, it asked for a 'state of emergency' to be introduced in the USSR. The Soyuz faction did not formally support the August coup of 1991, an event that had devastating consequences for the faction. Many of the group leaders joined Sergei Baburin's movement Russian All-People's Union and the related Rossiya faction in the RSFSR parliament (sometimes called the sister faction of the Soyuz group). An organization with the same name continued to exist as a political movement in the post-Soviet Russia, featuring communist/ Neo-Stalinist views. That organisation took part in the 1995 legislative election within the bloc Power to the People, led by Baburin and Nikolai Ryzhkov. In the 1999 legislative election, the Soyuz movement, then led by Georgy Tikhonov, took part within the Stalin Bloc — For the USSR coalition.