VOSTOCHNY SPACEPORT, February 29. /TASS/. The State Commission at the Vostochny Spaceport has greenlighted the fueling and launch of the Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket with the Meteor-M satellite No. 2-4, 17 Russian small satellites and one Iranian satellite, Roscosmos said.

"Today, the State Commission at the Vostochny Spaceport approved the fueling of the Soyuz-2.1b launch vehicle carrying the Fregat booster, the Meteor-M satellite No. 2-4 hydrometeorological spacecraft and 18 Russian and foreign small satellites, and its blastoff from the 1S launching pad at 8:43:26 a.m. Moscow time (5:43:26 GMT) on February 29," it said.

The launch vehicle will put into orbit the Meteor-M satellite No. 2-4, designed to explore the Earth's natural resources, monitor the heliogeophysical situation in near-Earth space, as well as to receive information from automatic data collection measurement platforms. The spacecraft is also equipped with instruments of the search and rescue system COSPAS-SARSAT.

The previous launch of a Meteor-M satellite from the Vostochny Spaceport was carried out in June 2023, when 42 more satellites, including from Belarus, Malaysia, and the United Arab Emirates, were put in orbit.