MOSCOW, September 23. /TASS/. Russia’s weather watching satellite Meteor-M No.2 has resumed its operation after a failure caused by a magnetic storm, the press service of the satellite manufacturer - VNIIEM corporation - told TASS on Wednesday.
"A magnetic storm caused the failure of a microcontroller of a subsystem of the orientation system," the spokesman said. "Resumption of operations required that the spacecraft should be withdrawn from the mode of orbit orientation for a single pass."
"By now the orientation system has been fully restored," he said.
On Wednesday morning a source with the space rocket industry said that the orientation system of the satellite had suffered a disruption. At the same time, Roscosmos space corporation told TASS that the satellite was operating normally. On the face of it, the weather watching service Rosgidromet refrained from comments.
The satellites of the Meteor family are built by the VNIIEM corporation on orders from the space corporation Roscosmos and weather watcher Rosgirdomet.
Meteor-M No. 2 was put into space in July 2014 and entered service in April 2015. Its predecessor, Meteor-M No.1, launched in the autumn of 2009 remained operational throughout its declared five-year lifecycle. It was withdrawn from operation on October 1, 2014. A short while later all of the satellite’s instruments, including the orientation system went dead.