Soyuz 2.1b/Fregat | Glonass-K1? (Kosmos 2621?)
Russian Space Forces launched Soyuz 2.1b Fregat-M carrying Glonass-K1? (Kosmos 2621?) from 43/3 (43L), Plesetsk Cosmodrome, Russian Federation, Russia on November 7, 2026 at 13:22 UTC. The launch was a success.
COUNTDOWN
FLIGHT PLAN
The window opened at 2026-11-07 07:00:00Z and closed at 2026-11-07 21:00:00Z. The launch vehicle successfully inserted its payload(s) into the target orbit(s).
FIELD KIT / OPTICS
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MISSION BRIEF
Note: Payload identity uncertain. Glonass-K are the third generation of satellite design for GLONASS satellite navigation system. GLONASS is a Russian space-based navigation system comparable to the similar GPS and Galileo systems. This generation improves on accuracy, power consumption and design life. Each satellite is unpressurized and weighs 935 kg, and has an operational lifetime of 10 years.
SOURCE: LAUNCH LIBRARY 2 // THE SPACE DEVS
LAUNCH CORRIDOR
- Due east
- The lowest inclination a direct launch from here can reach is 62.9°. That’s this pad’s own latitude. Flying east also gets the most free speed from Earth’s rotation.
- Due south
- The polar corridor, at 90° inclination, passes over both poles. It gets no help from Earth’s spin, so the same rocket can carry less.
Drag the globe to turn it. The shading is the real terminator, and it moves.
A globe of the Earth centred on 43/3 (43L) at latitude 62.93 degrees north, longitude 40.45 degrees east. Two curved lines leave the pad. The solid gold line runs due east and marks the lowest orbital inclination a direct launch from this site can reach, 62.9 degrees, equal to the pad’s latitude of 62.9 degrees. The dashed cyan line runs due south and marks the polar corridor at 90 degrees inclination. The darkened part of the globe is the night side. The surface wind is from 216° at 9 km/h. That's the cyan arrow at the pad.
LAUNCH SITE
43/3 (43L)
Plesetsk Cosmodrome, Russian Federation, Russia
OBSERVED 2026-11-11 11:00:00Z // OPEN-METEO (CC BY 4.0) // GENERAL CONDITIONS, NOT LAUNCH CRITERIA
Minimum direct inclination 63°. This pad is 63° north of the equator, so a direct launch can't reach an orbit inclined less than 63°. An orbit of inclination i never passes over latitudes beyond ±i. Getting to an equatorial orbit, which geostationary satellites need, takes a 63° plane change at some point in the flight. Inclinations of 63° and up are reachable straight off the pad. The ground here moves east at about 212 m/s with Earth's spin. That's 465 m/s at the equator, falling with the cosine of latitude. A launch due east keeps that head start.
DATUM WGS-84 // EQUIRECTANGULAR PROJECTION // ORBIT FIGURES DERIVED FROM THE PUBLISHED LATITUDE
Open this pad in a mapPAD CONDITIONS
SURFACE WIND @ 10 M
9km/h
Blowing from the south-west, bearing 216 degrees
GUSTING
23km/h
Moderate drizzle
SOURCE: OPEN-METEO CC BY 4.0
The observed figures are general weather at the coordinates of 43/3 (43L). They aren’t the launch rules. The operator and the range write those for each mission, and they cover things this forecast doesn’t carry, like electric fields, cloud layers higher up and winds along the rocket’s path. Only the operator publishes them. Wind often stops a countdown, but no number here is a limit for this flight. Nothing here is a go or no-go call. No operator figure was published for this attempt.