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July 05, 2019
Soyuz-2.1b launches Meteor-M No. 2-2 and 32 small satellites
Today, on July, 5 2019 at 08:41:46 Moscow time Soyuz 2.1b carrier rocket with Fregat booster was successfully launched from Vostochny Cosmodrome. The rocket carried Meteor-M Russian meteorological spacecraft No. 2-2 as well as 32 spacecraft as secondary payload. The injection into orbit took place during 4.5 hours after the launch.
The launch vehicle including Soyuz 2.1 (built by Progress Russian Space Center), Fregat booster (built by NPO Lavochkin) operated as expected. According to the flight program the booster put the main and secondary spacecraft into three different orbits. After the completion of the program the booster will be sunk in a non-navigable district of the Pacific ocean.
Soyuz-2.1b launches Meteor-M No. 2-2 and 32 small satellites
Meteor-M spacecraft No. 2-2 was built by VNIIEM Corporation and falls into the category of Earth remote sensing satellites. The spacecraft is capable of providing images of clouds, Earth surface, ice and snow cover in visible, infrared and microwave bands. It is also capable of receiving data about the sea surface temperature and ozone layer condition, as well as measuring humidity level. This data will help to improve weather forecast accuracy in Russia.
29 satellites were launched for Germany, France, USA, Israel, UK, Sweden, Finland, Thailand, Ecuador, Czech Republic and Estonia. Three Russian academic CubeSats were launched as well.
Meteor-M Russian meteorological spacecraft No. 2-2
To make the injection into orbit as precise and comfortable as possible, Fregat booster formed three various orbits depending on the spacecraft mission. The first orbit is a heliosynchronous one with the height of 828 kilometers and inclination of 98.57 degrees, the second one is 580 kilometers high and with the inclination of 97.7 degrees, the third orbit is 530 kilometers high with the inclination of 97.5 degrees. All the spacecraft separated from the booster as expected and will further be managed by the customer companies of the launch.
Roscosmos Press Release: http://en.roscosmos.ru/20804/
Images, Video, Text, Credits: Роскосмос/ЦЭНКИ/SciNews/Wikipedia.
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