Kanopus-V-IK 1

Launch data: Designation  42825 / 17042A Launch date  14 Jul 2017 - 06:37 UT Launch site  Baik, LC31/6 Launch vehicle  Soyuz-2-1a Fregat-M Mission  Imaging Earth obs. Earth orbit: Perigee / Apogee  506 x 510 km Eccentricity   Inclination   97.4° Period   min

Spacecraft data:

Mission details:

• On Jul 14, 2017 Roskosmos launched a Soyuz with the Kanopus-V-IK imaging satellite and 72 small secondary payloads deployed in three batches.
• The Soyuz placed the Fregat upper stage on a suborbital trajectory. Fregat made multiple burns to several different orbits to dispense its payloads.

   0636 UTC      Launch                Orbit
   0645-0652     Fregat burn 1         180? x 500? km
   0735-0736     Fregat burn 2         480  x 522
   0738          Kanopus deployed
   0813-0814     Fregat burn 3         500? x 600?
   0858-0859     Fregat burn 4         600? x 600?
   0901-0905     Deployed 5 satellites  - probably FLP, Technosat, WNISAT, Norsat-1/2
   0910-0926     Deployed 19 satellites - probably MKA-N 1/2, CICERO, Corvus, LEMUR, NanoACE, Mayak, Iskra, EUTE-YuzGU
   0951-0953     Fregat burn 5         485? x 600?
   1034-1035     Fregat burn 6         485  x 485 
   1418-1441     Deployed 48 Flock-2k Dove satellites
   1451-1453     Fregat burn 7         -50? x 485
   1518          Fregat reentry
  

Dead satellites from 2017 Soyuz/Fregat

• On 2017 Jul 14, a Soyuz/Fregat launch from Baykonur placed 73 payloads in orbit.
• One payload, Flock 2k-42, appears not to have separated from the Fregat stage, while another, Lemur-2-ArtFisher, was ejected at the wrong time and ended up in the wrong orbit - a new flavor of launch failure. In addition, nine of the payloads never responded to their ground controllers after deployment: the nine appear to be Landmapper-BC1 and BC2 (Astro Digital), CICERO-1, 2 and 3 (GeoOptics), Iskra-MAI-85 (Moscow Av.Inst.), Ekvador-UTE-YuzGU (YuzGU, SW State Univ), and MKA-N-1 and 2 (Roskosmos). The satellites were all mounted in the same area of the launch vehicle. According to an article by Debra Werner in Space News (Mar 9) the satellite owners and insurers believe, despite denials by the launch service marketer, that these satellites were damaged because a Fregat thruster malfunctioned and sprayed hydrazine over the payloads, with another thruster plume possibly causing the hydrazine to ignite. The satellites were, in this account, dead before ejection.
• In a successful launch there is an at least implicit responsibility of the launch provider not to toast the payloads during ascent. In fact 62 of the 73 payloads were delivered correctly, this launch′s success rating is reduce from 100 percent to 89 percent. (JR747)

External links:

• Satellite tracking (n2ya.com): Real time satellite tracking