Eurockot Launch Services GmbH

Eurockot Launch Services GmbH was a commercial launch services company headquartered in Bremen, Germany, founded in 1995 as a joint venture between Daimler-Benz Aerospace (later EADS, subsequently ArianeGroup) holding 51% and Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center holding 49%. The company offered dedicated LEO launches using the Rockot vehicle, a converted SS-19 ICBM paired with a Breeze-KM upper stage, flying from Plesetsk Cosmodrome, Russia. First commercial launch took place in May 2000.^[1]

Eurockot launched several ESA Earth observation and science missions over its operational lifetime: GOCE (March 2009), SMOS (November 2009), Swarm A/B/C (November 2013)^[2], Sentinel-3A (February 2016)^[3], Sentinel-5P (October 2017), and Sentinel-3B in April 2018, which was the final Rockot mission.^[4] An October 2005 launch carrying CryoSat was lost due to a Breeze upper stage fault, suspending operations until the cause was identified.

Eurockot specialised in polar and sun-synchronous LEO orbits well suited to Earth observation missions. Operations have been on hiatus since 2022 following international sanctions arising from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which precluded continued cooperation with Khrunichev.^[1]