This morning, March 25, 2021, at 05:47 Moscow time, the starting calculations of subsidiaries of the State Corporation “Roskosmos” on the Soyuz-2.1b launch vehicle with the East-2.1B acceleration unit and 36 spacecraft Satellite company OneWeb on board. According to telemetry information, the start and separation of the accelerated block from the third stage of the carrier passed in normal mode.
After a successful separation of the head part, the dismissed block “Frigate” continued to eliminate new 36 devices to the target orbit. Over the next 3 hours and 40 minutes, the OneWeb satellites in accordance with the flight cyclicogram will be sequentially separated (four satellite groups) from the Russian “accelerant”.
The “Soyuz-2.1b” carrier rocket was created in the Progress Rocket and Space Center (Samara, enters the state corporation “Roskosmos”) and is a modification of the “Union-2”. Compared to the option “1a”, it has an engine with increased energy characteristics on the third stage. At the “Union-2.1b” in relation to the previous version above the accuracy of removal, stability and controllability, increased weight of the payload.
On the first and second stages of the carrier, liquid rocket engines of RD-107A and RD-108A are used, on the third – four-chamber RD-0124. Fuel – kerosene (oxidizing agent – liquid oxygen). For the first time, the Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket started on December 27, 2006 from the Baikonur cosmodrome with the Frigate Acid Block and Corot Space Telescope.