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Russia Launches Final Mission of 2001, Seven Satellites Orbited During Past Week
By SPACE.com Staff
posted: 03:00 pm ET
28 December 2001
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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- A three-stage Tsiklon booster carried six satellites into Earth orbit late Thursday in what was the final launch of 2001, according to the Interfax news service. Liftoff from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in the Arkhangelsk region of Russia came at 10:24 p.m. EST Thursday (0324 GMT Friday). Three Gonets D1 communications satellites as well as three military satellites that will be designated Kosmos 2384, 2385 and 2386 were atop the Ukranian-built rocket, according to a Russian Space Forces news release. The Gonets D1 satellites join six others already operating in low Earth orbit, where they are to remain in service until at least 2004 servicing thousands of subscribers, Interfax reported. According to the report, the Gonets system maintains stable communications between any moving objects carrying receivers and transmitters and determines the subscriber's coordinates. The launch comes exactly one week after a two-stage version of the Tsiklon sent a classified military satellite into orbit from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome. Liftoff came at 11:05 p.m. EST Dec. 20 (0405 GMT Dec. 21). That spacecraft will be designated Kosmos 2383 With these pair of launches carrying seven satellites rounding out the year, an unofficial count shows there were 57 launches of payloads into Earth orbit, with all but one successful. The July 12 launch of an Ariane 5 rocket placed a pair of satellites into the wrong orbit when its upper stage malfunctioned.The year began with a Chinese Long March 2 rocket sending the Shenzhou 2 on what was billed as a test mission for a future piloted flight. It's still unclear exactly how successful that mission was, but the Chinese have said they have plans for addtional tests in 2002.
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