spacetoday.net: Soyuz launches several satellites

Posted: Wed, Jul 9, 2014, 8:44 AM ET (1244 GMT)
Soyuz 2-1b launch of Meteor-M2 (Roscosmos)

A Soyuz rocket placed several spacecraft, including a Russian weather satellite and a commercial imaging satellite, into orbit on Tuesday. The Soyuz 2-1b rocket lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 11:58 am EDT (1558 GMT, 9:58 pm local time) Tuesday and placed its payload of satellites into Sun-synchronous orbits. The primary payload of the launch was Meteor M2, a 2,778-kilogram Russian weather satellite. The rocket also carried several secondary payloads, including SkySat-2, the second in a series of small commercial remote sensing satellites built by Skybox Imaging, a company being acquired by Google. The Soyuz's payload also featured TechDemoSat-1, a technology demonstration satellite built by Surrey Space Technology Ltd.,; Relek, a Russian ionospheric science satellite; and UKube-1, the first satellite built by a Scottish company, Clyde Space.