Lotos-S1 #6 | Soyuz 2.1b

Featured picture credit score: ROSCOSMOS

Take a look at our Prelaunch Preview if you wish to know extra in regards to the mission earlier than raise off.

How Did It Go?

The Russian Federal Area Company efficiently launched the Lotos-S1 #6 satellite tv for pc on a Soyuz 2.1b launch car right into a Solar-synchronous orbit. The rocket lifted off from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, in Russia. This mission marked the seventh launch of a satellite tv for pc for the Liana digital intelligence (ELINT) constellation.

Lotos-S1 #6 Mission

Liana Constellation

Liana is a brand new Russian army surveillance constellation that may include two sequence of satellites: Lotos-S1 and Pion-NKS. Each of them are meant to assemble knowledge on international army forces positioned on the bottom, on water, and within the air. Nevertheless, they work a bit bit otherwise, Lotos-S1 has a passive radar system, whereas Pion-NKS has an lively one.

Liana is the successor of the Soviet reconnaissance system Legenda-Tselina that was additionally used for goal designation and steering of high-precision weapons. One in every of its elements, lively satellites US-A, had such a robust radar that it needed to be outfitted with a nuclear reactor. Solely this sort of supply might present the system with sufficient vitality. This prompted a global scandal in January 1978, when, throughout an emergency deorbiting of the satellite tv for pc, radioactive particles crashed and contaminated over a 124,000 sq. kilometer space of the Northwest Territories in Canada. Because of this, the Liana constellation won’t use nuclear vitality as an influence supply.

As of at the moment, six Lotos satellites have already been deployed into orbit (1 Lotos-S and 5 Lotos-S1, which is a modernized iteration of Lotos-S). One of many newest launches of Lotos-S1 came about in February 2021. Then, the Pion-NKS No. 1 joined the constellation on June 25, 2021.

Lotos-S1 #6 Satellite tv for pc

As a result of categorized nature of this mission, little or no is thought in regards to the traits of the Lotos-S1 satellites, nonetheless, their goal is way from a secret. The Lotos-S1 #6 is a radio surveillance satellite tv for pc. The Russian army contracted TsSKB-Progress to construct the satellite tv for pc bus and KB Arsenal to construct the payload. The satellite tv for pc has two deployable photo voltaic arrays, some batteries, and a mass of ~6,000 kg. The principle purpose of this satellite tv for pc is surveillance of international army forces.

The Lotos-S1 sequence of satellites is specialised within the interception of various info, together with communications. It detects the electromagnetic radiation of army items (for instance, ships) and determines their coordinates for transmission to the management heart. The Pion-NKS, in flip, can detect small objects like automobiles of potential enemy forces in real-time. By receiving and analyzing radio alerts, this satellite tv for pc will assist to know what kind of army tools was detected and supply its coordinates.

What Is Soyuz 2.1b?

ROSCOSMOS’s Soyuz is a multi-use medium-lift launch car that was launched in far 1966 and since then has been the workhorse of the Soviet/Russian area program. It’s succesful to launch civilian and army satellites, in addition to cargo and crewed missions to the ISS. Over the a long time, a number of variants of the Soyuz rocket have been developed. Soyuz 2.1b is one in all its newest iterations that belongs to the Soyuz-2 rocket household.

The rocket consists of three levels, all of them are expendable. When launching to the ISS, Soyuz-2 might be flown with both a Progress capsule or a Soyuz spacecraft.

Soyuz 2.1b is about 46.3 meters (152 ft) in peak and a couple of.95 meters (9 ft) in diameter. The car’s complete lift-off mass is roughly 312,000 kg (688,000 lb). The rocket’s payload raise capability to low-Earth orbit (LEO) is between 6,600 and seven,400 kg relying on the launch web site.

Phases

Aspect Boosters

The primary stage of the Soyuz 2.1b rocket consists of 4 facet boosters which are powered by RD-107A engines. Every one of many boosters has a conical form and a dry weight of three,784 kg. It’s roughly 19.6 meters in size, with a diameter of two.7 meters. Both sides booster has two vernier thrusters which are used for flight management.

The RD-107A engine runs on rocket-grade kerosene (RP-1) and liquid oxygen (LOx). The propellants are saved within the pressurized aluminum alloy tanks, the kerosene tank is positioned within the cylindrical a part of the booster, and the LOx one is within the conical part. Every a kind of engines have 4 combustion chambers and collectively they’re able to producing a thrust of 840 kN at sea stage and 1,020 kN in a vacuum.

Maybe, essentially the most spectacular second of the Soyuz-2 rocket’s launch is the separation of the primary stage. It occurs roughly 2 minutes after the launch. The boosters carry out a sample, often called the “Korolev cross” (named after Sergei Korolev, an important determine of the USSR area program and historical past).

Second and Third Phases

The middle core stage is powered by a single RD-108A engine, and the higher stage is fitted with a single RD-0124 engine. Each of those engines run on RP-1 and LOx and have 4 combustion chambers. The second stage is 27.1 meters lengthy, with a diameter of two.95 meters, and a dry mass of 6,545 kg. It has 4 vernier thrusters for three-axis flight management.

The third stage of a Soyuz-2 rocket has a peak of 6.7 meters, a diameter of two.7 meters, and a dry mass of two,355 kg. One attention-grabbing factor in regards to the RD-0124 engine on this stage is that it begins its ignition sequence previous to stage separation. This course of is named “sizzling fireplace staging”.