MOSCOW, February, 29. /TASS/. The Fregate booster carrying the Meteor-M No. 2-4 weather satellite and 18 smaller satellites has separated from the third state of the Soyuz-2.1b launch vehicle, according to a Roscosmos broadcast.

The carrier rocket blasted off from the Vostochny spaceport at 8:43 a.m. Moscow time (5:43 a.m. GMT).

It will take about 50 minutes to deliver the Meteor-M satellite into the designated orbit. In addition, 17 satellites made by the Russian private company Sitronics and Iran’s Pars 1 satellite will also be put into orbit.

The Meteor-M satellite is designed to explore the Earth's natural resources, monitor the helio-geophysical situation in near-Earth space and receive information from automatic data collection measurement platforms. The spacecraft is also equipped with the tools of the COSPAS-SARSAT search and rescue system.