Russia’s Fregat booster delivers 53 small satellites into target orbit

VOSTOCHNY COSMODROME /Amur Region/, November 5. /TASS/. A Fregat booster successfully delivered 53 Russian and foreign-made small satellites launched atop a Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket as hosted payload from the Vostochny spaceport into the designated orbits, Russia’s State Space Corporation Roscosmos reported on Tuesday.
“The hosted payload consisting of 49 Russian satellites, a Russian-Chinese satellite, a Russian-Zimbabwean satellite and two Iranian small satellites was delivered into the designated orbits and separated from the Fregat booster that was launched by a Soyuz-2.1b rocket from the Vostochny spaceport today,” Roscosmos said in a statement.
Considering Ionosfera-M No. 1 and Ionosfera-M No. 2 heliogeophysical satellites put into orbit, Russia launched a record 51 domestic satellites into orbit, it said.
The Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket blasted off from site 1S of the Vostochny spaceport in Russia’s Far East at 2:18 a.m. on November 5, delivering the Fregat booster with two Ionosfera-M satellites as the main payload and 53 small satellites as hosted payload into the transfer orbit.
The Russian private space company Sputnix (part of the Sitronics Group) confirmed to TASS that its 28 satellites, including 24 SITRO-AIS ship tracking and 4 satellites of the Space-Pi scientific and educational project had been successfully delivered into orbit.
“Now our specialists are registering telemetric signals and calibrating systems at the Sputnix Flight Control Center in Moscow. All the systems are set to be placed under control, which will indicate the mission’s success. Final results will be obtained in the coming 24 hours,” Company Head Vladislav Ivanenko said.