On Thursday, October 25, at 0315 hours Moscow time, the State Space Test Center Plesetsk in the Arkhangelsk Region was successfully launched by the Soyuz-2.1b medium-class launch vehicle with a spacecraft in the interests of the Russian Defense Ministry.
The launch was carried out by a joint calculation of Roskosmos specialists, enterprises of the rocket and space industry and the Ministry of Defense of Russia under the general leadership of the Commander of the Space Forces, Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Aerospace Forces, Colonel-General Alexander Golovko. The launch of the carrier rocket and the launching of the spacecraft into the calculated orbit took place in the normal mode.
Three minutes after the launch, the Soyuz-2.1b launch vehicle was taken to escort by means of the ground-based automated control complex of the German Titov Main Test Space Center. At the estimated time, the spacecraft of the Ministry of Defense of Russia was launched into the target orbit, and accepted for control by ground-based facilities of the Space Forces of the VKS. A steady telemetric connection is established and maintained with the spacecraft. The onboard systems of the spacecraft are functioning normally.
After the adoption of the control spacecraft assigned a sequence number “Cosmos-2528”
This is the third launch of the Soyuz-2 launch vehicle from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in 2018. Flight tests of the Soyuz-2 rocket complex began at the Plesetsk cosmodrome on November 8, 2004. Over the past fourteen years, 34 launches of Soyuz-2 rocket launchers of modernization stages 1a, 1b and 1c have been carried out from the northern cosmodrome.
