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Russia’s Federal Space Agency Roscosmos has named the date of liftoff of what appears to be the last Russian-Ukrainian launch vehicle in the Zenit family of launch systems.
"The liftoff of the Zenit-2SB launch vehicle has been scheduled for 16:45:33 Moscow Standard Time (13:45:33 GMT) on December 11, 2015," a report TASS received from the agency’s press service said.
The launch will take place at the Baikonur space center located on the territory of Kazkhastan.
Fuel ingredients have been loaded into The Fregat-SB booster block, which is expected to take Elektro-L No. 2 space probe into a designated orbit. The block has now been delivered to the assembly and testing depot.
"Launch teams of the aerospace industry have gotten down to the conclusive operations preceding the assembly of the space nose cone, which includes the Fregat SB booster block
and the Electro-L No.2 space probe," Roscosmos said.
The Electro-L No. 2, which is a meteorological probe, has been designed for remote sounding of the Earth’s crust. It will ensure a multi-spectrum filming the whole disk of the Earth in the visible and infrared ranges of the spectrum.
Earlier reports said this may be the last space start of a launch vehicle in the Zenit family in history of Russian-Ukrainian space projects and products. One more launch-ready vehicle in the Zenit family is stored at Baikonur but its warranty expired this summer.
Suggestions have been made to use the latter rocket for launching a Spektr-RG research probe.
Quelle: TASS
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