MOSCOW, January 20 The first launch from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in 2024 will take place on February 29, the Soyuz-2.1b rocket will launch the Meteor-M hydrometeorological satellite into orbit “and small vehicles as a passing load, a source in the rocket and space industry said.
““Currently, the launch of the rocket with the Meteor-M satellite No. 2-4 is scheduled for 8.43 Moscow time on February 29,” the agency’s interlocutor said.
It was previously reported that the satellite, along with small associated load vehicles, was delivered to the cosmodrome on December 28, 2023. According to the Center for the Operation of Ground-Based Space Infrastructure Facilities (TSENKI, Russian Cosmodromes), in addition to Meteor-M, CubeSat satellites manufactured by leading Russian universities, commercial companies and non-profit organizations, as well as one small foreign-made spacecraft, will be placed under the rocket’s head fairing.
In addition, it was reported that one of the accompanying load satellites will be the first device – a technology demonstrator of the Marathon-IoT Internet of Things constellation, which will be part of the Sphere multi-satellite system.
It was originally planned that Meteor-M No. 2-4 would be launched at the end of 2023, and satellites No. 2-5 and 2-6 would be launched in 2024 and 2025. After this, launches of the new generation Meteor-MP devices will begin.
As Konstantin Litovchenko, deputy head of the geophysical monitoring department of Roshydromet, reported last November, the previous Meteor-M No. 1 (launched in 2009) and Meteor-M No. 2 (in orbit since 2014) years), decommissioned in 2022-2023. Only satellites No. 2-2 and No. 2-3, launched into orbit in July 2019 and June 2023, are functioning.
Meteor-M No. 2-4 will be the only device of this series that will be launched into orbit in 2024, follows from a message from Roscosmos published at the end of 2023 about plans to replenish the Earth remote sensing group.
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