 So I wanted to continue our analysis of the nations, organizations and companies who have the capability of launching satellites into space. Also there's a new rocket engine that just hit the market that may enable future flights into space as well. This is your space pod for April 9th, 2015. To pick up where we left off in the last space pod that I did, by 1971 six nations had launched satellites into space, the Soviet Union, United States, France, Japan, China and the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom abandoned their rocket program in favor of collaborating on a multinational project called the Europa Launcher. Although the Europa Launcher never got past the design stage, that project did lead to the creation of the European Space Agency and Ariane Space to market their rockets commercially. The European Space Agency launched their first satellite on December 24th of 1979 from the Guiana Space Center in Corot, French Guiana. The satellite was called the CATS-1 satellite and its purpose was to provide data about the launch characteristics on the new Ariane-1 rocket. Again, we will talk in more detail about the European Space Agency and the Ariane family of rockets in another space pod because I do want to go really in depth onto all their different programs. Thanks to the European Space Agency and Ariane space, they enabled multiple nations to operate their own satellites who didn't have their own rocket programs. India joined the list of Orbital Launch Capable Nations on July 18th of 1980 when they launched the Rohini-1 Experimental Satellite on their four-stage solid rocket simply called the Satellite Launch Vehicle, abbreviated as SLV. It launched from the Shiharakoto Range later to be named the Satish Dhawan Space Center. They retired the SLV rocket after four flights and their next successful rocket, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle or PSLV, would see a lot of success and reliability. Again, I want to talk more in depth about the Indian Space Agency and all of their programs, so we'll talk about that in the future space pod. Israel was the next nation to launch its own satellite called the OFEC-1 and it launched on the Shavit rocket on September 19th of 1988. Their satellite is a reconnaissance satellite and it had to be launched in a retrograde orbit or west-facing against the centrifugal force of the Earth's spin so that spin rocket stages drop over the Mediterranean Ocean instead of neighboring Arab countries. Thus, their rocket, a three-stage solid rocket with an optional liquid force stage, can't deliver as much mass into orbit as it would if it launched with the centrifugal force of Earth's spin or east-facing. The rocket is based off of Israel's Jericho-2 ballistic missile which was developed with some assistance from France and incorporated some United States technology as well. It seems that the Shavit rocket was developed by Israel to launch their reconnaissance satellites due to the classified nature of those satellites. All of their other scientific and communication satellites have been launched by other nations' rockets. However, Israel has expressed interest in marketing the Shavit rocket for commercial use so that might start flying a lot more frequently than it has in the past. After the Soviet Union broke up, some of their member states inherited the Soviet space program and technically these new nations had to launch their first satellites after their governments were reorganized. Namely, Ukraine launched six Stella III Russian communication satellites on their Cyclone III rocket for the first time on September 28th of 1991, followed by the Russian Federation launching their Cosmos 2175 reconnaissance satellite on a Soyuz-U rocket on January 21st of 1992. Both of these launches occurred from the Plasetsk Cosmodrome in Russia. Other than the nations that I've previously talked about, the only other nations that have launched their own satellite on their own rocket is Iran and North Korea. I talked about both of those in detail in a previous space pod and I hope that you can check that out if you haven't already. Several private and public companies have the capability of launching satellites and spacecraft into space, technically Boeing and Lockheed Martin have had this capability for a long time due to their involvement in NASA's early rocketry programs, which have resulted in today's Delta and Atlas family of rockets. Orbital science has achieved satellite launching capability when their Pegasus rocket reached orbit on April 5th of 1990, 25 years ago. Happy anniversary, Orbital ATK. Technically, Sea Launch also has satellite launching capability, but their rocket is based off the Ukrainian Zenit rocket with a Russian upper stage and components provided by Boeing such as the payload fairing. Sea Launch launched for the first time on March 27th of 1999. Finally, SpaceX joined the club with their first successful Falcon 1, Flight Number 4, which occurred on September 28th of 2008. I hope you've enjoyed hearing about these firsts in space that these companies, nations and organizations have achieved. I've enjoyed talking about them and I really enjoyed learning more about the lesser known satellite operators. In some recent news, Blue Origin announced on April 7th that they have completed acceptance testing on their BE-3 hydrogen engine and have made it available on the commercial market. Blue Origin plans to use the engine on their new Shepard suborbital vehicle, and it'll be really interesting to see if anyone buys their engine and incorporates it either onto some new or even existing rockets. Thank you for watching this Spacepod. My name is Michael Clark, and I would love to hear your guys' thoughts on all of these different first satellites that we've talked about, especially if you're from any of those nations. Don't forget to subscribe if you haven't already, and if you'd like to find out more information about how you can help us to make these Spacepods, then please visit patreon.com slash spacepod to find out how you can contribute towards this show and become one of the citizens of tomorrow. Thank you again for watching this video. I will see you guys again next week. There's going to be no live show this weekend, and as far as the Spacepods I'm going to do next week, I'm tentatively thinking about talking about animals in space and India's spaceflight programs, especially their plans to send humans into space. So unless there's something really cool that happens recently, that's my plan for next week, but that's subject to change. Anyway, thank you again for watching, and I'll see you guys next time.