MOSCOW, may 4 – RIA Novosti. The launch of the first meteorological spacecraft “Arktika-M” is scheduled for the end of the year, told RIA Novosti CEO of the company-manufacturer NPO Lavochkin Vladimir Kolmykov.
“currently, the spacecraft “Arktika-M” number 1 and is made of electro-radio engineering at the disassembled spacecraft. In accordance with the schedule launch is scheduled in late 2020,” said Kolmykov.
In February, the source RIA Novosti reported that the launch of “Arktika-M” is scheduled for December 9. It will be held on the carrier rocket “Soyuz-2.1 b” with the upper stage “Fregat”. Then the Russian space Agency did not comment on this information.
In General, it is planned to create a group of such devices. In August, 2019 in the materials of the Russian space Agency on the public procurement website said that the launch of the second satellite “Arktika-M” postponed from 2021 to 2023. Kolmykov confirmed these data.
“On the second spacecraft, work is underway on production design and on-Board equipment. In accordance with the contract, the launch of the spacecraft “Arktika-M” No. 2 is to be implemented in 2023″, he said.
the set of equipment “Arktika-M” will be similar geostationary meteorological spacecraft of the series “Electro-L”. The satellite will be placed in highly elliptical orbit that will allow him to collect meteorological and hydrological information on the state of the polar regions of the Earth that are not visible with the Russian satellite “Electro-L”.
After the launch of two spacecraft “Arktika-M” met continuously obtain current information about the state of the atmosphere and surface at the poles of the Earth. This will improve the accuracy of the models in the preparation of short-term weather forecasts and will give scientists a large amount of new data for studying the phenomenon of global climate change.
