Russian company Sputnix announces launch of satellites into orbits

MOSCOW. May 17 (Interfax) - A Russian company called Sputnix (part of Sitronix Group) has put in orbit two remote sensing spacecraft (RSSs) and four satellites for ship tracking, the company said on Friday.

"A new batch of civilian satellites made by Sputnix, a Russian private company (a Sitronix Space subsidiary) was launched into orbit today," the company said on Telegram.

They are two Zorky-2M RSSs and four SITRO-AIS (Automatic Identification System) satellites for tracking sea vessels, it said.

"Telemetry from all the satellites has been obtained, the company's Mission Control Center has taken control of the spacecraft," the company said.

With this latest launch, the SITRO-AIS group numbers 28 specialized spacecraft, it said.

The Zorky-2M satellites will send images of the earth surface in four spectral ranges with a resolution of between 2.5 and 2.8 meters per pixel, it said.

"The other AIS satellites that were launched are three-unit CubeSats equipped to receive and transmit AIS signals from sea vessels to ground stations which monitor and provide safety for sea navigation, including on the Northern Sea Route," the company said.

On December 26, 2023 Sputnix said it planned to launch more than 100 spacecraft in 2024.

Earlier on Friday, Russia's Defense Ministry announced the launch of a Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket from Plesetsk Cosmodrome, which put in orbit satellites for the defense ministry.