Exactly 50 years ago, on January 16, 1969, for the first time two manned spacecraft “Soyuz-4” and “Soyuz-5” docked. Four Soviet cosmonauts were involved into that mission: Vladimir SHATALOV, Boris VOLYNOV, Aleksey ELISEEV, Evgeniy KHRUNOV. The “Marka” joint-stock company of the Russian Federal Communications Agency issued the postal stationery (a post card) to celebrate that historic event.

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On January 24, 2019 at 18:07 UTC the PSLV-DL rocket-carrier was launched from Sriharikota spaceport, 80 km from Chennai, India. The rocket orbited the “Microsat-R” Indian military Earth observation satellite. But a major objective of the launch was to demonstrate using the PSLV’s fourth stage as an experiment base in orbit after deploying the military satellite.

On January 21, 2019, at 05:42 the “Long March –11” (“Changzheng-11”) rocket-carrier was launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Jiuquan, Gansu Province, the northwest of China. The rocket orbited four satellites. The two primary payloads are the “Jilin-1” and “Jilin-2” hyperspectral Earth-imaging satellites.

On January 19, 2019 at 19:10 UTC the "Delta-4 Heavy” rocket-carrier was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, USA. The launch was performed by the United Launch Alliance supported by the 30th Space Wing of US Air Force. The rocket orbited the “KH-11-17” (Crystal-17, NROL-71) spy satellite. It is a top-secret surveillance payload owned by the National Reconnaissance Office. The identity, purpose and orbit of the “KH-11-17” satellite have been kept secret by the NRO, which owns the U.S. government’s spy satellite fleet, supplying imagery and data to intelligence agencies and the military.

On January 18, 2019 at 00:50 UTC the Japanese “Epsilon” rocket-carrier was launched from the Uchinoura Space Center situated close to the Japanese town of Kimotsuki, in Kagoshima Prefecture. The rocket orbited seven small satellites. This launch also debuted a new multi-payload carrying capability for the Epsilon rocket, a light-class, solid-fueled rocket-carrier.