GLONASS-M Satellite 746 Launched Successfully
November 28, 2011News from CANSPACE Listserv.
Roscosmos, the Russian Space Agency, has announced the successful launch this morning of a single GLONASS-M satellite from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome using a Soyuz-2.1b rocket with a Fregat upper stage. The launch, scheduled for 08:25:58 UTC, occurred on time. The upper stage and the satellite achieved the target orbit and a clean separation of the satellite from the booster occurred, according to the report.
The satellite is GLONASS-M No. 46, to be known as 746, once operational. It is not yet known into which orbit plane the satellite has been placed but it's unlikely that it is Plane 1, which just received three new satellites from the 4 November launch from Baikonur. Plane 2 has three of the oldest operating GLONASS satellites, 715, 716, and 717, launched in December 2006, but Plane 3 has an older satellite, 714, launched in December 2005. The new satellite's destination will become clear in the next couple of days either from a Roscosmos/Reshetnev announcement or from a NORAD/JSpOC tracking report.
According to preliminary NORAD/JSpOC tracking, the satellite has been injected into Plane 3.
View the launch here.
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