Russia launches 52 satellites in one mission, puts 3 Iranian spacecraft into orbit

Key facts

• Russia lifted a Soyuz-2.1b from Vostochny with 52 satellites and separately placed three Iranian communications payloads in orbit.
• Roscosmos said the payload includes two Aist-2T satellites and 50 smaller spacecraft.
• The Aist-2T satellites are designed to photograph the Earth’s surface and produce stereoscopic images to build digital terrain models.
• Some smaller satellites are CubeSats under the Universat program and will study climate change and “space weather” in low Earth orbit for the Russian Hydrometeorological Service.
• A Russian rocket placed the Iranian satellites — Paya, Kowsar, and Zafar-2 — into a 500-kilometre orbit from Vostochny.
• The satellites can capture images with up to three-meter resolution for management of water resources, agriculture, and environmental monitoring.