Soyuz cluster launch, (C)Space Report
--------------------
On Jul 14 Roskosmos launched a Soyuz with the Kanopus-V-IK
imaging satellite and 72 small secondary payloads.
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
FLP, the Flying Laptop, is from the U. of Stuttgart. The 120kg satellite
has a Ka-band propagation
study experiment and a multispectral camera.
NORSAT-1 and 2 are Norwegian Space Center satellites with AIS payloads
and an experiment to measure total solar irradiance. They use a variant
of the Toronto UTIAS/SFL GNB bus.
WNISAT-1R is a 40 kg Japanese commercial weather satellite using the
AXELSPACE Hodoyoshi bus.
Technosat from the Tech. U of Berlin carries a variety of technology
tests using the new TUBiX20 satellite bus.
MKA-N 1 and 2 are 6U cubesats built by Russia's Dauria Aerospace for
Rosksmos with 22-m resolution multispectral imagers.
CICERO 1 to 3 are 6U cubesats for the US company GeoOptics built by
Tyvak, with GPS-RO weather payloads.
Corvus-BC 1 and 2 are 6U cubesats from the US company AstroDigital
(formerly Canopus) with imaging payloads.
NanoACE is a 3U technology test cubesat from Tyvak.
Iskra-MAI-85 is a 3U student cubesat from MAI (Moscow Aviation Inst.);
I don't know what payloads are on it.
Ekvador-UTE-YuZGU is a 1U cubesat built by students at the SW State
Univ in Kursk in collaboration with Ecuadorian engineers from
Universidad Tecnologica Equinoccial in Quito. I don't know whether
it will be UN-registered as Russian or Ecuadorian.
Mayak ("beacon") is a 3U cubesat from Moscow Polytechnic University.
It is designed to deploy a highly reflective structure about 2m across
which will act as a drag brake but also as an optical beacon.
The intent is that Mayak will be one of the brightest objects in the
night sky; different calculations put the maximum brightness in the
mag -5 to mag -10 range; the lower (and more likely) value still would
make it brighter than the ISS and potentially annoying to astronomical
sky surveys.
The mission also deployed 8 SpireGlobal 3U-cubesat Lemur satellites
and 48 Planet 3U-cubesat Dove imaging satellites forming the Flock-2k
constellation.