MOSCOW, November 29. /TASS/. Ground-based monitoring systems in Russia and other countries continue searching for the Fregat booster with 19 satellites that may be in the wrong orbit, a source in the space industry told TASS on Wednesday.
"Our means continue checking the outer space to find the Fregat booster with 19 satellites in the non-designated orbit. Monitoring means in other countries are also involved in the effort," the source said.
According to the source, "no one sees it."
After the Fregat acceleration unit was brought into the intermediate orbit, it stopped sending telemetric data to the Earth. After that, the booster was expected to fly around the Earth and approach the orbit’s designated point from the other side "however, it was not spotted there," the source said.
"It has either fallen or is staying in the wrong orbit," the source said.
A Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket blasted off from the Vostochny cosmodrome at 08:41 Moscow time with 19 space satellites on board on Tuesday.
Russia’s State Space Corporation Roscosmos earlier reported that "the Soyuz 2.1b rocket put the booster Fregat and space satellite Meteor-M in the designated intermediate orbit." However, efforts failed to establish contact with the booster during the first planned communications session.