{"id":11985,"date":"2020-12-04T00:50:23","date_gmt":"2020-12-03T16:50:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/soyuz-rocket-lifts-off-from-plesetsk-with-russian-relay-satellites\/"},"modified":"2020-12-04T00:50:23","modified_gmt":"2020-12-03T16:50:23","slug":"soyuz-rocket-lifts-off-from-plesetsk-with-russian-relay-satellites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/soyuz-rocket-lifts-off-from-plesetsk-with-russian-relay-satellites\/","title":{"rendered":"Soyuz rocket lifts off from Plesetsk with Russian relay satellites"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/tGdBY9rsIy4\" width=\"678\" height=\"381\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Three Russian Gonets communications satellites launched late Wednesday from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, riding a Soyuz rocket and Fregat upper stage into orbit on the second successful Soyuz mission in less than 24 hours.<\/p>\n<p>The Gonets-M satellites lifted off at 8:14 p.m. EST Wednesday (0114 GMT; 4:14 a.m. Moscow time Thursday) from Plesetsk, a military spaceport in the&nbsp;Arkhangelsk region of northern Russia.<\/p>\n<p>Powered by kerosene-fueled engines generating more than 900,000 pounds of thrust, the Soyuz-2.1b rocket arced toward the north from Plesetsk, targeting a high-inclination orbit tilted 82.5 degrees to the equator.<\/p>\n<p>The rocket shed its four first stage boosters, core stage, and payload fairing in the first few minutes of the flight. A third stage RD-0124 engine finished the Soyuz rocket\u2019s role in the mission before deploying a Fregat upper stage to perform two burns to reach an on-target orbit at an altitude of roughly 932 miles (1,500 kilometers).<\/p>\n<p>Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, confirmed the three Gonets-M communications satellites and a small hitchhiker payload for the Russian Defense Ministry successfully separated from the Fregat upper stage.<\/p>\n<p>The launch from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome came less than 24 hours after a Soyuz rocket and Fregat upper stage lifted off from the Guiana Space Center in South America with a military spy satellite for the United Arab Emirates. That mission was also successful.<\/p>\n<p>There have been 13 flights by Russia\u2019s venerable Soyuz rocket family so far this year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCongratulations to all colleagues and partners on the successful launch of three Gonets M spacecraft,\u201d said Pavel Cherenkov, director of the Gonets satellite system for Roscosmos. \u201cAccording to the information received, their separation from the upper stage took place normally.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAfter the specified flight operations are completed, they will be entered into the communication system,\u201d Cherenkov said in a translated statement. \u201cThe replenishment of the grouping created an important resource for the viability of the system and created some redundancy opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_48961\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-48961\" style=\"width: 1200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-48961\" src=\"http:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/4925111185.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/4925111185.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/4925111185-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/4925111185-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/4925111185-678x452.jpg 678w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-48961\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Soyuz-2.1b rocket climbs away from its launch pad at 8:14 p.m. EST Wednesday (0114 GMT Thursday) at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome. Credit: Roscosmos<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Russian government ministries and civilian authorities use the Gonets-M satellites to relay secure messages between mobile terminals and fixed operators.&nbsp;Gonets means \u201cmessenger\u201d in Russian.<\/p>\n<p>The three Gonets-M satellites, each with a prelaunch weight of about 617 pounds (280 kilograms), will undergo orbital checkouts before being commissioned into the data relay network. The spacecraft are designed for five-year missions.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Gonets-M satellites will be used for personal communications services, including mobile and fixed communications, industrial, environmental and scientific monitoring in remote regions,\u201d said ISS Reshetnev, manufacturer of the Gonets M satellites.<\/p>\n<p>The Gonets fleet is effective in Russia\u2019s far northern regions out of reach of conventional satellite communications systems. Messages relayed by the Gonets network are transmitted from the ground to a satellite passing overhead, then stored in the craft\u2019s memory until it flies over the message\u2019s recipient.<\/p>\n<p>The Gonets system is operated by a public-private partnership between Roscosmos \u2014 the Russian space agency \u2014 and Russian industry.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_48960\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-48960\" style=\"width: 850px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-48960\" src=\"http:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/gonec-m-02.6c4819446f9974167d131f986b9c83651840-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"850\" height=\"567\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/gonec-m-02.6c4819446f9974167d131f986b9c83651840-2.jpg 850w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/gonec-m-02.6c4819446f9974167d131f986b9c83651840-2-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/gonec-m-02.6c4819446f9974167d131f986b9c83651840-2-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/gonec-m-02.6c4819446f9974167d131f986b9c83651840-2-678x452.jpg 678w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 850px) 100vw, 850px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-48960\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">File photo of a Gonets M satellite. Credit: ISS Reshetnev<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>With the addition of three new Gonets-M satellites, the data relay system now consists of 15 satellites, tweeted Dmitry Rogozin, head of Roscosmos.<\/p>\n<p>A Soyuz launch in September also launched three Gonets-M satellites, giving the network six fresh relay stations in the last three months.<\/p>\n<p>The secondary payload launched by the Soyuz rocket was a nanosatellite named ERA-1 for the Russian Ministry of Defense. The small military satellite will test \u201cadvanced microdevices and microsystems\u201d for attitude control and navigation, Roscosmos said.<\/p>\n<p><b><i>Email the author.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\ufeff Three Russian Gonets communications satellites launched late Wednesday from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, riding a Soyuz rocket and Fregat upper stage into orbit on the second successful Soyuz mission in less than 24 hours. The Gonets-M satellites lifted off at 8:14 p.m. EST Wednesday (0114 GMT; 4:14 a.m. Moscow time Thursday) from Plesetsk, a military [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1982,1763,1983,1984,25,1893,234,352],"class_list":["post-11985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-era-1","tag-fregat","tag-gonets","tag-kosmos-2548","tag-launch","tag-plesetsk-cosmodrome","tag-roscosmos","tag-russia"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11985"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11985\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}