Soyuz (rocket family)

Soyuz
A Soyuz-FG rocket carrying a Soyuz TMA spacecraft launches from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan on 18 September 2006.
FunctionLaunch vehicle
ManufacturerOKB-1
Progress Rocket Space Centre
Country of originUSSR
Russia
Size
Stages3
Associated rockets
FamilyR-7
Launch history
StatusActive
Launch sites
First flight28 November 1966
Type of passengers/cargoSoyuz
Progress

Soyuz (Russian: Союз, meaning "union", GRAU index 11A511) is a family of expendable Russian and Soviet carrier rockets developed by OKB-1 and manufactured by Progress Rocket Space Centre in Samara, Russia. With over 2,000 flights since its debut in 1966, the Soyuz is the rocket with the most launches in the history of spaceflight.

For nearly a decade, between the final flight of the Space Shuttle program in 2011 and the 2020 first crewed mission of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, Soyuz rockets were the only launch vehicles able and approved for transporting astronauts to the International Space Station.

The Soyuz vehicles are used as the launcher for the crewed Soyuz spacecraft as part of the Soyuz programme, as well as to launch uncrewed 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. The Soyuz family is a subset of the R-7 family.