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Dnepr rocket with 23 satellites to be launched from Yasny spaceport

The planned blastoff time is 07:10 GMT

© ITAR-TASS Archive/Sergei Kazak

MOSCOW, November 21. /ITAR-TASS/. The Dnepr rocket (RS-20B) with 23 satellites will be launched on Thursday from the Yasny cosmodrome in Orenburg region, the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos) told Itar-Tass.

“The Dnepr rocket with 23 satellites will be launched today from the Dombarovsky base of the Strategic Missile Forces in the Yasny district of the Orenburg region. The planned blastoff time is 11:10 Moscow time (07:10 GMT),” the agency said.

“The satellites’ injection into orbit will take place at 11:26 Moscow time (07:26 GMT),” Roskosmos specified.

The Dnepr rocket will place into orbit the DubaiSat-2 satellite and 22 small spacecraft, including 14 CubeSat mini-satellites, as well as STSAT-3, SKYSAT-1, UNISat-5, AprizeSat-7, AprizeSat-8, WNISat, BRITE-PL and GOMX-1 satellites.

The DubaiSat-2 satellite was built on the order of the Emirates Institution for Advanced Science and Technology (EIAST) on the basis of the DubaiSat-1 satellite that had been launched in 2009. DubaiSat-2 has a number of technical innovations: higher data transmission speed, high-resolution image, similar to Google Earth, as well as a state-of-the-art camera with sensors.

SKYSAT-1 is the first spacecraft of an innovative constellation of Earth remote sensing mini-satellites, which will make high-resolution satellite images of any area several times a day. Its customer is Korea Aerospace Research Institute. Dnepr is a Russian-Ukrainian carrier rocket. It was created on the basis of the RS-20 intercontinental ballistic missile (NATO reporting name — SS-18 “Satan”). The Dnepr program envisages the conversion of more than 150 missiles RS-20 into carrier rockets. One of its 16 launches ended in failure — on June 21, 2010.

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