(Reuters) – Russia launched a Soyuz rocket early on Tuesday carrying two satellites designed to watch the house climate round Earth and 53 small satellites, together with two Iranian ones, Russia’s Roscosmos house company mentioned.
The Soyuz-2.1 launch spacecraft, which lifted off from Russia’s Vostochny Cosmodrome, carried two Ionosfera-M satellites, which can turn out to be a part of the house system for monitoring the Earth’s ionosphere, the company mentioned.
The ionosphere, the place Earth’s ambiance meets house, stretches roughly 50 to 400 miles (80 to 644 km) above Earth’s floor, based on info offered on NASA’s web site.
Every Ionosfera-M satellite tv for pc weighs 430 kg (948 lb) and its working orbit is at an altitude of 820 km (510 miles), based on Interfax information company.
The system will embody in complete 4 of the Ionosfera-M satellites. The subsequent two gadgets are deliberate to be launched in 2025, Roscosmos reported.
Among the many 53 small satellites are two Iranian satellites, the Kowsar, a high-resolution imaging satellite tv for pc, and Hodhod, a small communications satellite tv for pc, in addition to the primary Russian-Chinese language scholar satellite tv for pc Druzhba ATURK.
Russia in February launched into house an Iranian analysis satellite tv for pc that can scan Iran’s topography from orbit, Iran’s state media reported on the time.