Russian Kosmos 3M Launches Two Spacecraft

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Russian Kosmos 3M Launches Two Spacecraft

More Information:

A Russian Kosmos 3M successfully launched two satellites from Plesetsk Cosmodrome, pad 132/1, at 06:07 UTC on November 28 in heavy snow with temperatures at –20°C. The Algerian satellite AlSat-1 and Russian satellite Mozhaets were placed into a 686 km (370 nmi) sun-synchronous orbit. Telemetry indicates that all onboard equipment on both satellites is performing normally with solar arrays and aerials being successfully deployed. The flight also included a package, Rubin-3-DSI , to monitor the launch environment. The launch trajectory involved a dog-leg to avoid overflying Alaska while still using the standard Kosmos 3M first stage drop zone, and an earlier than usual fairing separation which caused higher heating loads than a normal launch.

The 90 kg (198 lbm) AlSat-1 is the first spacecraft of an international Disaster Monitoring Constellation. AlSat-1, built by SSTL, will provide wide swath (600 km) 32-meter multispectral images and 1 GByte solid state recorders for high capacity onboard storage of image data and transmission to ground using S-band transmitter. The spacecraft is the result of international cooperation between Algeria, China, Nigeria, Thailand, Turkey, and Vietnam coordinated by SSTL. AlSat-1 will be joined in orbit by four more SSTL-built microsatellites to be launched in mid-2003. Engineers from both Surrey and Algeria built and tested the spacecraft over a 15-month period. AlSat-1 will be operated by Algeria’s Centre National des Techniques Spatiales. This is Algeria's first national satellite. A follow-on constellation with higher imaging resolution capability will begin launches in 2004.

The 64 kg (141 lbm) Mozhaets was built by NPO Prikladnoi Mekhaniki, Zheleznogorsk, with a payload built by professors and students of the Mozhaisky Military Space Academy. It includes a GLONASS/GPS receiver, a particle detector, and an amateur radio payload. This satellite will be used to estimate the influence of radiation flux on the service life of onboard electronic systems. The satellite will be used as a learning tool by students of the military space academy, as well as conduct studies in the field of geodesy, among other objectives. It may be based on the Strela-1M small communication satellite bus.

The 45 kg (99 lbm) Rubin-3-DSI was built by PO Polyot, Omsk, and OHB System of Bremen. Rubin-3-DSI will remain attached to the second stage. Rubin-3-DSI measured the launch vehicle environment and performance.

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December 2, 2002