spacetoday.net: Russia launches radio astronomy satellite

Posted: Tue, Jul 19, 2011, 6:48 AM ET (1048 GMT)
Zenit-3M launch of Spektr-R (Roskosmos)

A Zenit rocket successfully launched a long-delayed Russian radio astronomy satellite on Monday. The Zenit-3M rocket lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 10:31 pm EDT Sunday (0231 GMT Sunday) carrying the Spektr-R satellite, releasing the satellite into a highly elliptical orbit about three and a half hours later. The satellite will deploy a 10-meter antenna to allow astronomical observations at radio wavelengths. In an orbit that takes the spacecraft from 1,000 to 330,000 kilometers from the Earth, Spektr-R will be used in radio interferometry observations that will permit extremely high resolution observations. The Spektr-R concept dates back to the 1970s, and was originally planned for launch in the mid-2000s before suffering construction delays.