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Soyuz-2.1b rocket carrying Meteor-M 2-3 satellite launched from Vostochny Cosmodrome

This is the ninth launch of a Soyuz-2.1b rocket this year and the second launch from the Vostochny Cosmodrome this year

MOSCOW, June 27. /TASS/. A Soyuz-2.1b rocket carrying the Meteor-M 2-3 weather satellite, as well as additional Russian-and Foreign-made satellites was launched from the Vostochny Cosmodrome, according to the live stream on Roscosmos’ website.

About nine and a half minutes into the flight, the nose cone will separate from the rocket’s third stage. After that, the Fregat booster will continue taking the payload into orbit. The Meteor-M satellite is expected to reach its target orbit in an hour, while additional satellites will take a bit longer than 3 hours after the stars.

This is the ninth launch of a Soyuz-2.1b rocket this year and the second launch from the Vostochny Cosmodrome this year.

The rocket’s main payload is the Meteor-M 2-3 weather satellite. It is designed to survey Earth’s natural resource, monitoring of heliogeophysical situation in the near-Earth space, and for collection of data from automated measurement platforms.

The additional payload is comprised of 42 small spacecraft, including Russian RuVDS pico-satellite, a cube only 5 cm long. According to the satellite maker, this spacecraft is designed to check operation of server systems in the orbit; it will also be involved in science popularization projects.

The rocket will also deliver 16 Space-Pi’s CubeSat small satellites, 9 UniverSat satellites and 17 small spacecraft in the interest of Russian of foreign commercial clients, including UAE’s PHI-Demo IoT satellites, Belarus’ BSUSat-2 nano-satellite and Malaysia’s A-SEANSAT-PG1.

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