The Russian launch of the Meteor-M No.2-2 and rideshare satellites from the Vostochny Cosmodrome.

Photo is courtesy of Valery Sharifulin/TASS.

The carrier rocket Soyuz-2.1b with the upper stage Fregat, the weather satellite Meteor-M No.2-2 and 32 small spacecraft, have been successfully launched by Russia from the Vostochny Cosmodrome.

Approximately nine minutes after the launch, the upper stage with the payloads separated from the third stage launcher and the upper stage Fregat then initiated the program to deliver the satellites to their designated orbits.

Meteor-M No.2-2 is a weather satellite designed by VNIIEM Corporation. Meteor-M No.2-1 was lost during the launch from the Vostochny Cosmodrome on November 28, 2017.

Thirty-two satellites will be also placed into orbit. Three of them are Russian cubesat satellites for space research — Socrat, VDNH-80 and AmurSat. The other satellites are from Finland, the UK, France, Germany, the U.S., Israel, Sweden, Thailand, Ecuador, the Czech Republic and Estonia.

This July launch became the first launch from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in 2019. Roscosmos Director General Dmitry Rogozin and Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov watched the launch.

Story source: TASS