spacetoday.net: Russia launches remote sensing satellites

Posted: Sat, Dec 25, 2004, 1:37 PM ET (1837 GMT)
A Tsiklon booster launched two Ukrainian remote sensing satellites on Friday. The Tsiklon-3 (Cyclone-3) booster lifted off from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in northern Russia at 6:20 am EST (1120 GMT, 2:20 pm Moscow time) Friday and placed two satellites into low Earth orbit. One satellite, Sich-1M, built by Ukrainian firm Yuzhnoye State Design Bureau, carries a remote sensing payload designed, in part, to study ice fields in polar regions as well as support weather forecasting efforts. The other payload, KS5MF2, is a microsatellite with a visible-light camera, also to be used in remote sensing studies. Both satellites will be operated by the Ukrainian National Space Agency. While Russian reports indicated that the satellites were placed in a circular orbit 650 kilometers high, some western accounts indicate the spacecraft are in elliptical orbits with a perigee of under 300 km, suggesting a possible problem with the upper stage of the Tsiklon booster.