Rideshare launch services

  • about 100 launches of the Soyuz launch vehicle with the Fregat upper stage launch system

  • 8 successful rideshare missions under contracts of Glavkosmos with foreign partners

  • over 200 small spacecraft launched from the Russian cosmodromes as a rideshare payload

  • 3 cosmodromes for launches: Baikonur, Vostochny and Plesetsk

  • EFFICIENCY

  • Multitasking

  • FLIGHT PROVEN RELIABILITY

  • CUSTOMER-FRIENDLY APPROACH

 

The Soyuz-2 launch vehicle rollout and launch

Since 2017, the list of Glavkosmos’s services for rideshare payload missions has been supplemented by the possibility to form several permanent target orbits within one mission.

 

In July 2017, for the first time in the world, a record launch of 72 commercial small spacecraft aboard the Soyuz-2.1a LV with the Fregat upper stage under the Glavkosmos contracts was carried out from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, the primary payload was the federal Earth remote sensing spacecraft Kanopus-V-IK.

A special feature of this mission was the formation of three target orbits:

  • one target orbit for Kanopus-V-IK;
  • two more target orbits for the 72 small spacecraft.

The unique mission became possible thanks to the unsurpassed technical capabilities of the Fregat upper stage.

 

Another outstanding mission was the launch of the rideshare payload from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in September 2020:

the orbit planes of the rideshare small spacecraft were changed in relation to the target orbit upon the customers’ request.

 

Thus, the role of Glavkosmos in the implementation of rideshare payload missions today is:

  • successful launches into orbit of more than 170 small spacecraft from 22 countries of the world;

  • cooperation with 12 regular large foreign customers.

 

Launch opportunities

 

 

MISSION

SCHEDULED FOR

ORBIT

SPACECRAFT TYPE

MISSION STATUS

#1

Q4 2023 - Q2 2024

550-600 km, SSO

Microsat CubeSat

Fully booked

#2

Q4 2024

550-600 km, SSO

Microsat CubeSat

Fully booked

#3

Q4 2024

550-600 km, SSO

Microsat CubeSat

Fully booked

#4

Q4 2024 - Q1 2025

550-600 km, SSO

Microsat CubeSat

Fully booked