VOSTOCHNY SPACEPORT /Amur Region/, May 26. /TASS/. The State Commission has greenlit Saturday’s launch of a Soyuz-2.1a carrier rocket with the first Kondor-FKA civilian radar observation satellite designed to provide for the round-the-clock all-weather monitoring of the Earth’s continental areas and the World Ocean, a TASS correspondent reported on Friday.
"Today, the State Commission at the Vostochny spaceport approved the fueling of the Soyuz-2.1a carrier rocket with a Kondor-FKA No.1 Earth remote sensing radar satellite and its launch from the 1S launching pad at 0:14:51 a.m. Moscow time on May 27," Russia’s state corporation Roscosmos said on Friday.
Developed by the Research and Production Association of Machine-Building for the Aerospace Defense Forces, the satellite will deal with mapping of the Earth’s surface, environmental monitoring and the prospecting of natural resources. The space vehicle will be able to get detailed images with a 1-meter resolution and survey the Earth’s surface on an area of 120 km in any weather and at any time of the day or night.