March 29, 2024

Successful rocket launch: Russia brings 38 satellites into space |  Free Press

Successful rocket launch: Russia brings 38 satellites into space | Free Press

On the third attempt, Russia launched a satellite missile from 18 countries into space. These include German space objects, and for the first time a device that is now supposed to collect space waste.

Baikonur (dpa) – After two seizures, Russia has brought 38 satellites from 18 countries, including Germany, into space.

The “Soyuz 2.1a” launch vehicle took off this morning from the Russian space port of Baikonur in the Republic of Kazakhstan in Central Asia, as the Russian space agency Roscosmos showed in a live broadcast. Dmitry Rogozin, president of Roscosmos, said everything went according to plan. Roscosmos had abruptly canceled the start that was initially scheduled for Saturday, then postponed it to Sunday and finally to March 22nd.

Roscosmos did not provide any information about the exact technical reasons for this shift. The start was canceled 38 minutes before the appointment. According to Russian sources, the satellites also include a Japanese device called Elsa-d, which is said to be the first to collect scrap, for example, from unused satellites. It has been said that due to the huge amount of space waste it serves the sustainability in the universe. The Technical University of Berlin is said to have several radio satellites on board the mission.

Several space objects from individual countries, including Saudi Arabia and South Korea, are used to explore Earth and are supposed to send images and data from the planet to earth stations. According to Roskosmos, these are smaller satellites in various shapes and masses up to 200 kg. They were said to have been placed in different orbits. The countries represented also include Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Slovakia, Hungary, Brazil, Canada, Israel and Great Britain.

On Thursday, the “Soyuz 2.1b” launch vehicle from the Russian spaceport Vostochny is supposed to launch 36 satellites of the British telecom company OneWeb into space. Roscosmos announced that preparations had gone according to plan. The agency published several photos of the missile scheduled to take off from the launch pad on March 25 at 3.47 am CET.

Roscosmos plans this year for a total of eight launches of the OneWeb satellite system, which should provide better internet coverage on Earth. The project envisions a constellation of hundreds of satellites in space. They must enable a high-speed network of the internet – on water, on land, and in the air. The company had already used Russian Soyuz missiles in previous launches.

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