Launch Success
Liftoff Time (GMT)
02:31:18
Monday July 18, 2011
Watch Replay
Official Livestream
First Russian space telescope.
The Spektr-R (formerly RadioAstron) project is an international collaborative mission to launch a free flying satellite carrying a 10-meter radio telescope in high apogee orbit around the Earth. The aim of the mission is to use the space telescope to conduct interferometer observations in conjunction with the global ground radio telescope network in order to obtain images, coordinates, motions and evolution of angular structure of different radio emitting objects in the Universe with the extraordinary high angular resolution. The orbit of RadioAstron satellite will have apogee radius in the range up to 350 000 km. The spacecraft's operational lifetime will be no less than five years. Space-ground Very Long Baseline Interferometer (VLBI) measurements with this orbit will provide morphological and coordinate information on galactic and extragalactic radio sources with fringe size up to 8 micro arc second at the shortest wavelength 1.35 cm. The RadioAstron program, initiated by Astro Space Center (ASC) of Lebedev Physical Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) in collaboration with other institutions of RAS and Federal Space Agency (FSA), has expanded into a broad international collaboration: scientists from over 20 countries are constructing the instruments, planning the mission profile, and assuring ground radio telescopes support for RadioAstron. Russia will provide the satellite, most of the on-board hardware, interferometer integration and all kinds of the tests. General designer of satellite and SRT construction is Lavochkin Association (LA) of the RosKosmos.
Elliptical
1 Payload
3,660 kilograms
Manufacturer
YuzhmashRocket
Height: 54.35m
Payload to Orbit
LEO: 13,740 kg
GTO: 6,000 kg
Liftoff Thrust
7,257 Kilonewtons
Fairing
Diameter: 4.1m
Height: 10.7m
Stages
3
73rd
Mission
2nd
Mission of 2011
38th
Orbital launch attempt