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Three Russian Gonets communications satellites were launched late Wednesday from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, driving a Soyuz rocket and Fregat upper stage into orbit on the second successful Soyuz mission in less than 24 hours.
The Gonets-M satellites took off Wednesday at 8:14 pm EST (0114 GMT; 4:14 Moscow time Thursday) from Plesetsk, a military spaceport in the Arkhangelsk region of northern Russia.
Powered by kerosene-powered engines generating more than 900,000 pounds of thrust, the Soyuz-2.1b rocket moved north from Plesetsk, aiming for a high-tilt orbit tilted 82.5 degrees relative to the equator.
The rocket lost its four first stage boosters, main stage, and payload fairing in the first few minutes of flight. A third-stage RD-0124 engine completed the Soyuz rocket’s role in the mission before deploying a Fregat upper-stage to perform two burns to achieve orbit on the target at an altitude of approximately 932 miles (1,500 kilometers).
Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, has confirmed that the three Gonets-M communications satellites and a small hitchhiker payload for the Russian Defense Ministry have been successfully separated from Fregat’s upper stage.
The launch from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome occurred less than 24 hours after a Soyuz rocket and the Fregat upper stage took off from the Guyana Space Center in South America with a military spy satellite for the United Arab Emirates. That mission was also successful.
So far this year there have been 13 flights of the venerable Russian Soyuz rocket family.
“Congratulations to all colleagues and partners on the successful launch of three Gonets M spacecraft,” said Pavel Cherenkov, director of the Gonets satellite system for Roscosmos. “According to the information received, their separation from the higher stage took place normally.
“After the specified flight operations are completed, they will be fed into the communications system,” Cherenkov said in a translated statement. “The reconstitution of the cluster has created an important resource for the viability of the system and has created some opportunities for redundancy.”
Russian government ministries and civil authorities use Gonets-M satellites to transmit secure messages between mobile terminals and fixed operators. Gonets means “messenger” in Russian.
The three Gonets-M satellites, each with a pre-launch weight of approximately 617 pounds (280 kilograms), will undergo orbital checks before being put into service in the data network. The spacecraft are designed for five-year missions.
“The Gonets-M satellites will be used for personal communications services, including mobile and fixed communications, industrial, environmental and scientific monitoring in remote regions,” said ISS Reshetnev, manufacturer of the Gonets M satellites.
Gonets’ fleet is effective in the far north regions of Russia, beyond the reach of conventional satellite communications systems. Messages relayed by the Gonets network are transmitted from the ground to a passing satellite, then stored in the aircraft’s memory until it flies over the recipient of the message.
The Gonets system is operated by a public-private partnership between Roscosmos – the Russian space agency – and Russian industry.
With the addition of three new Gonets-M satellites, the data transmission system now consists of 15 satellites, tweeted Dmitry Rogozin, head of Roscosmos.
A Soyuz launch in September also launched three Gonets-M satellites, providing the network with six new relay stations over the past three months.
The secondary payload launched by the Soyuz rocket was a nanosatellite called ERA-1 for the Russian Ministry of Defense. The small military satellite will test “advanced microdevices and microsystems” for attitude control and navigation, Roscosmos said.
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