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Satnews Daily
November 5th, 2018

Russia Launches Glonass-M Satellite



A Soyuz 2.1b rocket carries The Glonass-M satellite to orbit. Photo is courtesy of Sergey Savostyanov/TASS.

The Fregat upper stage successfully launched a Glonass-M satellite into orbit on Sunday, following separation from the Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket, according to an official with the Russian Defense Ministry.

"The Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket that was launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome on Saturday, November 3, at 23:17 Moscow time, has successfully launched the Russian navigation spacecraft Glonass-M into the calculated orbit at a set time," the official said.

This is the fourth launch of a Soyuz-2 carrier rocket from Plesetsk Cosmodrome in 2018. Flight tests of the Soyuz-2 space launch complex began at Plesetsk in the autumn of 2004. Over the past 14 years, 36 launches of the Soyuz-2 carrier rockets have been conducted from the northern cosmodrome, including the launch on Saturday.

The Soyuz-2 rocket replaced the Soyuz-U carriers, which was launched from Plesetsk from 1973 to 2012. In total, 435 Soyuz-U missiles were launched from the cosmodrome with some 430 vehicles launched into orbit.