Russia launched a record number of satellites

Russian space agency Roscosmos said that among the newly launched satellites, there are 51 Russian satellites, one Russian-Chinese satellite, one Russian-Zimbabwe satellite and two Iranian satellites. According to Roscosmos, this is a record number of Russian satellites put into orbit at the same time.

Among the 51 Russian satellites, there are two notable satellites, Ionosfera-M. They will become part of a space system that monitors Earth’s ionosphere. The ionosphere, where the atmosphere meets space, stretches from about 80 to 644 km above the Earth’s surface.

Each Ionosfera-M satellite weighs 430 kg and operates in a high orbit of 820 km. The system will include a total of four Ionosfera-M satellites. The remaining two satellites are expected to launch in 2025.

Two Iranian satellites launched on November 5 are Kowsar, a high-resolution imaging satellite, and Hodhod, a small communications satellite. These two satellites were designed and manufactured by Iranian company Omid Faza, helping to support environmental monitoring and communication in remote areas. This is the first time Russia has launched satellites built by a private Iranian company.

According to Guinness World Records, the current record for the number of satellites launched into orbit by a single rocket is 143, set by the American company SpaceX. This record batch of satellites is part of the company’s Transporter-1 mission, which launched on January 24, 2021. At that time, the two-stage Falcon 9 rocket carried a batch of satellites into orbit from Cape Canaveral Space Force Base, Florida.