On Monday, April 26, 2021, at 01:14:08 Moscow time, the starting settlements of subsidiaries of the State Corporation “Roskosmos” on the Soyuz-2.1b missile, the launch of the “Soyuz-2.1b” launch vehicle was launched and 36 New spacecraft of OneWeb in the framework of Mission number 45. At 01:23 Moscow time, the accelerated block separated from the third stage of the carrier on the subborital trajectory.
According to the receiving telemetry information, the start, separation of the steps and the orbital block passed in normal mode. After that, the Overclocking block “Frigate” continued the removal of 36 devices to the target circular orbit with a height of 450 kilometers. During the upcoming 3 hours 40 minutes, the OneWeb satellites in accordance with the flight cyclicogram will be sequentially separated (four satellite groups) from the Russian “Profiter” production of the SA Science and Production Association Lavochkina (part of the state corporation “Roskosmos”).
This start has become the third fully commercial from the Eastern cosmodrome, implemented by the European Supplier of the Arianespace launch services and the Russian-French company “Starmeser” for the Operator of the innovative satellite group of OneWeb from a new Russian cosmodrome.
The Soyuz-2.1B carrier rocket was created in the Progress Rocket and Space Center (Samara, enters Roscosmos) and is the modification of the “Union-2”. Compared to the option “1a”, it has an engine with increased energy characteristics on the third stage. At the “Union-2.1b” in relation to the previous version above the accuracy of removal, stability and controllability, increased weight of the payload.
On the first and second stages of the carrier, liquid rocket engines of RD-107A and RD-108A are used, on the third – four-chamber RD-0124. With the help of RD-107 and RD-108, the development of the Scientific and Production Association “Energomash” named after Academician V.P. Glushko (included in Roscosmos) reliably ensures the implementation of the domestic program of manned flights and output of spacecraft. To date, work was carried out on the modernization of RD-107 basic engines for the first stage and RD-108 engines for the second stage – 18 modifications for various programs.