MOSCOW, July 9. /ITAR-TASS/. Control of the six small satellites launched with the Soyuz-2.1b rocket on Tuesday was turned over to the customers, the Roscosmos press service told ITAR-TASS on Wednesday.

"In accordance with the flight cyclogram, separation of the small space vehicles from the upper stage was carried out as planned. The satellites were handed over to the customers for control," the press service said.

Soyuz-2.1b with the Fregat upper stage, the Russian meteorological satellite Meteor-M No. 2 and a group of six satellites, including the first Russian private satellite DX1, was successfully launched from Baikonur at 19:58 Moscow time (15:58 UTC) on Tuesday.

The Dauria Aerospace satellite maker company said on Wednesday that DX1 had sent a radio signal and telemetric information according to schedule.

Three hours after the liftoff, DX1 entered the zone of visibility of the Dauria Aerospace mission control centre based in the Skolkovo technology park. Specialists received and read several packages of data from the satellite and sent first commands, the company's press service said.

After all the checks, DX1 began commercial activities monitoring of shipping in oceans and rivers with the use of data from transmitters of the automatic identification system. It is the first satellite with such a function in Russia.

Shipping monitoring is of interest to state services and commercial users. The company has already signed an agreement on cooperation with the federal satellite communication operator Morsvyazsputnik of the Russian Transport Ministry.

MKA-FKI Relek is another Russian satellite carried by the Soyuz to orbit. It was developed at the Lavochkin scientific and production centre. Its scientific equipment includes systems to study high-altitude discharges, atmospheric phenomena and relativistic electrons from Earth's radiation belts.

The British satellite TechDemoSat-1 has equipment to monitor the ocean surface, study space and its influence on space equipment functioning and conduct remote earth probing. Another satellite from Great Britain, UKube-1, weighs only about four kg and carries four sets of payload, including a FunCube educational module created for popularization of knowledge about space, electronics and radio among schoolchildren.

SkySat-2 of the United States is equipped with a unique camera to gather information, processors to read it and correct inaccuracies and a radio system to send data to Earth. It is designed to make high resolution images and HD video.

Norway's Aissat-2, which weighs about seven kg, must monitor movement of ships in the Norwegian territorial waters. Its main payload is an automatic ship identification system receiver.