Russian remote sensing satellite put into final orbit - Roscosmos
MOSCOW. Dec 12 (Interfax-AVN) - The Russian remote sensing satellite Electro-L No. 2, which was launched into space on Friday, has been put into the final orbit, the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) told Interfax-AVN.
"The operation passed nominally. The spacecraft was put into a geostationary orbit with an altitude of 35,793 kilometers and a location point of 77.8 degrees of east longitude at 1:43 a.m. Moscow time Saturday," a Roscosmos spokesperson said.
The Electro-L No. 2 satellite is designed for the earth's multi-spectral imaging in visible and infrared spectrums, at a resolution of 1 kilometer and 4 kilometers respectively. The standard imaging periodicity is 30 minutes. In order to monitor various natural phenomena, the imaging periodicity can be set manually at 10 to 15 minutes from ground control centers.
The satellite's active service life is 10 years.
The satellite was launched into space from the Baikonur space center on board a Russian-Ukrainian-made launch vehicle Zenit-2SB on December 11.
It was planned originally that the satellite would go into space in January or February 2015. The launch date was later reportedly postponed for technological reasons to July, then to October, and then to November 18.