Russia postpones launch of Meteor-M satellite for organizational reasons
MOSCOW. May 15 (Interfax-AVN) - Russia has postponed the launch of the Meteor-M No. 2 hydro-meteorological satellite originally scheduled for June 19 to a later date to make the launching procedure more reliable, Valery Zaichko, a high-ranking official from the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), told Interfax-AVN on Thursday.
"Considering that we have several spacecraft there [being prepared for launch at the Baikonur space center], we have somewhat pushed it back to separate the launch of one spacecraft from another. There are no technical problems there. These are organizational problems so as to guarantee that all spacecraft are taken under control," he said.
Zaichko did not specify the date to which the launch has been postponed.
A space rocket industry source interviewed by Interfax-AVN said June 26 was being considered as the possible new date for the Meteor-M's launch, saying at the same time that the launch could as well be postponed to a later date.
Along with Meteor-M No. 2, a Soyuz-2 launch vehicle is also supposed to carry the Relek, Utube-1, SkySat-2, TechDemoSat-1, AISSat-2, and DX-1 spacecraft.
Meteor-M No. 2 is the second element of the Meteor-3M hydro-meteorological and oceanographic support system. The first satellite of the set was successfully launched on September 17, 2009 and has been used as intended since then.
The Meteor-M No. 2 has been built by the VNIIEM corporation under a contract with Roscosmos as part of the federal space program designed for 2006-2015. Its launch was earlier planned in 2013.