{"id":16714,"date":"2014-12-26T21:18:06","date_gmt":"2014-12-26T13:18:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/soyuz-rocket-launches-with-russian-earth-observation-craft\/"},"modified":"2014-12-26T21:18:06","modified_gmt":"2014-12-26T13:18:06","slug":"soyuz-rocket-launches-with-russian-earth-observation-craft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/soyuz-rocket-launches-with-russian-earth-observation-craft\/","title":{"rendered":"Soyuz rocket launches with Russian Earth observation craft"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The
The Soyuz 2-1b rocket carrying the Resurs P2 satellite lifted off at 1855 GMT (1:55 p.m. EST) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Credit: TsENKI TV<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A new Russian satellite streaked into orbit aboard a Soyuz rocket Friday, carrying high-resolution cameras to survey the globe and a plasma physics experiment to seek out signs of exotic antimatter and dark matter in the cosmos.<\/p>\n

The Resurs P2 spacecraft lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 1855 GMT (1:55 p.m. EST), rocketing into the sky north from the storied spaceport into orbit over Earth\u2019s poles.<\/p>\n

The Soyuz 2-1b booster\u2019s shed four strap-on rocket engines, a core stage engine and a bulbous nose fairing as planned. A third stage RD-0124 engine completed the Soyuz launch sequence before the rocket deployed the approximately seven-ton satellite less than 10 minutes after liftoff.<\/p>\n

The Soyuz rocket successfully released the Resurs P2 spacecraft in the correct orbit, according to Roscosmos, Russia\u2019s space agency.<\/p>\n

Designed for a five-year mission, the Resurs P2 satellite will collect imagery of Earth\u2019s surface for distribution to Russian government agencies responsible for agriculture, the environment, emergency situations, fisheries, meteorology and cartography.<\/p>\n

Urban planners, road and highway builders, land surveyors, and the oil and gas industry could use data from the Resurs P2 satellite, according to Russian officials.<\/p>\n

Circling nearly 300 miles above Earth, the spacecraft carries narrow and wide field of view cameras for close-up snapshots with a top resolution of about 1 meter, or 3.3 feet, and wide-angle images scanning a larger swath of Earth in one pass.<\/p>\n

Resurs P2 has a hyperspectral camera mode to survey the ground in 96 spectral bands, allowing image analysts to tease out details about vegetation and crop yields. The hyperspectral data can also help scientists determine the effects of insects on agricultural harvests, soil salinity, and microbial activity in large bodies of water.<\/p>\n

The satellite can also take three-dimensional stereo images.<\/p>\n

\"Artist's
Artist\u2019s concept of the Resurs P2 spacecraft in orbit. Credit: Roscosmos<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Resurs P2 was built by TsSKB Progress of Samara, Russia. The same storied space company is prime contractor for Russia\u2019s legendary Soyuz rockets.<\/p>\n

The civilian-operated spacecraft has similar performance to the U.S. and French-owned Earth imaging satellites, according to a TsSKB Progress press release.<\/p>\n

Resurs P2\u2019s payload \u2014 including a suite of multiple cameras, an astrophysics science instrument, and a communications package to track ships \u2014 makes the spacecraft like four satellites rolled into one, the craft\u2019s maker said in a press release.<\/p>\n

The Nucleon instrument developed by the Skobeltsyn Institute of Nuclear Physics at Moscow State University will detect high-energy cosmic rays to help scientists search for evidence of the existence of antimatter, dark matter and other strange forms of matter.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn spite (of) its small mass and size, the Nucleon instrument will double the global statistics collected during the past 50 years,\u201d said Dmitry Podorozhny, Nucleon\u2019s principal investigator. \u201cAnd it is referred to (as) breakthrough data. For the first time, we\u2019ll study a wide energy range of cosmic rays as never before \u2014 by four orders \u2014 by means of a single method during a long, not less than five-year, orbital experiment.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the Resurs P2 satellite enters service early next year, it will double the imaging capacity of Russia\u2019s premier civil Earth observing satellite system. A nearly identical spacecraft, named Resurs P1, launched in June 2013 to replace an aging older-generation Resurs satellite sent into space in 2006.<\/p>\n

The extra imaging capacity provided by Resurs P2 will help the system\u2019s users in the Russian government and international environmental agencies obtain more timely photos of regions of interest around the world.<\/p>\n

Data from the Resurs satellites aid in disaster response, help authorities update maps, track pollution, track ice in maritime shipping lanes, and detect fields of illegal drugs, according to TsSKB Progress.<\/p>\n

Russia plans to launch the third spacecraft in the new Resurs satellite series \u2014 Resurs P3 \u2014 in the fourth quarter of 2015, Roscosmos said.<\/p>\n

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Soyuz 2-1b rocket carrying the Resurs P2 satellite lifted off at 1855 GMT (1:55 p.m. EST) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Credit: TsENKI TV A new Russian satellite streaked into orbit aboard a Soyuz rocket Friday, carrying high-resolution cameras to survey the globe and a plasma physics experiment to seek out signs of […]<\/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":[1601,159,3778,4195,1302,3080],"class_list":["post-16714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-baikonur-cosmodrome","tag-earth-observation","tag-resurs","tag-resurs-p2","tag-soyuz","tag-soyuz-2-1b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16714"}],"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=16714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16714\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}