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Russia to carry out rocket launches from Baikonur, Plesetsk, Kourou spaceports by yearend

With today's launch of Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket with a Fregat booster and 36 British OneWeb communications satellites Roscosmos have completed the series of blast-offs from the Vostochny space center this year

MOSCOW, October 14. /TASS/. Russia has fulfilled the program of rocket launches from the Vostochny spaceport in the Russian Far East for this year, State Space Corporation Roscosmos Chief Dmitry Rogozin announced on Thursday.

"With this launch, [the lift-off of a Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket], we have completed the series of blast-offs from the Vostochny space center this year. But a lot of work still has to be done from Baikonur, Plesetsk and Kourou by the end of December," Rogozin wrote on his Telegram channel.

The Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket with a Fregat booster and 36 British OneWeb communications satellites blasted off from the Vostochny spaceport in the Russian Far East at 12:40 p.m. Moscow time on October 14. The satellites will separate from the booster in several stages. The launch will increase the OneWeb orbital constellation to 358 satellites.

The first six OneWeb satellites were orbited by a Soyuz-ST carrier rocket from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana on February 28, 2019. Another 34 satellites were delivered into outer space on February 7, 2020 and the same amount on March 21 that year from the Baikonur spaceport.

OneWeb satellites were launched from the Vostochny spaceport for the first time in December 2020. A total of 36 space vehicles were put into orbit. After that, OneWeb satellites were launched on March 25, April 26, May 28 and July 1, 2021 from the Vostochny spaceport and on August 22 and September 14 this year from the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

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