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Soyuz launches first Ionosfera mission A Soyuz-2-1b rocket lifted off from Vostochny spaceport on Nov. 5, 2024, carrying the first pair of four Ionosfera spacecraft. One of the few Russian space science projects expected to reach the launch pad this decade, the Ionosfera quartet aimed to monitor "space weather" phenomena, such as the impact of solar wind on the near-Earth space, which will have a dual-use application. The same rocket also delivered a cluster of 53 secondary payloads, including two satellites from Iran. The Ionosfera-1, -2 mission at a glance:
Short history of the Ionosfera mission
An early display model of the Ionosfera satellite. As their name suggest, Ionosfera-M satellites were designed to study a region of the near-Earth space known as the ionosphere spanning an altitude from 50 to 2,000 kilometers. Due to the influence of solar and galactic radiation, this region contains charged particles, such as ions and electrons, forming during the interaction between neutral atoms and molecules of the upper atmosphere with X-rays and UV-rays from space. As a result, the ionosphere can conduct electricity and reflect or interfere with radio waves. Because the electric current generating in the magnetosphere of the Earth can then propagate through the ionosphere, it plays a critical role in the formation of magnetic storms and other phenomena, including the famous aurora effects, In practical terms, the monitoring of the ionosphere can help to predict "space weather" events which can affect the ever-growing number of space and ground-based systems. The critical property defining the conditions in the ionosphere is the concentration of charged particles, which can be measured by bouncing radio impulses and interpreting the return signal from different altitudes. This method became known as ion probing or "ionozonding" in Russian and it was first tested aboard the Soviet Kosmos-381 satellite launched in 1970 and on the Interkosmos-19 in 1979. The USSR then planned an entire constellation to monitor "space weather" but only the short-lived Kosmos-1809 mission was launched in 1987, before the late Soviet space budget fell with the rest of the economy. Still, one ionosphere experiment was installed aboard the Priroda module, which was launched to the Mir space station in 1996, thanks to help from NASA, and it essentially concluded the Soviet period of research in this field. (1071) In the 2000s, Moscow-based Space Research Institute, IKI, made first real attempts to resume work with the Ionozond project, which, along with the main quartet also included a fifth spacecraft known as Zond-M. However, the Russian Federal Program extending from 2016 to 2025, limited funding for Ionosfera satellites, deferring the Zond-M until the following 10-year period. (INSIDER CONTENT) The Ionosfera quartet was built at Moscow-based VNIIEM Corporation, while IKI and its sub-contractors supplied the instruments and designed the science program. The Russian federal meteorological agency, Rosgidromet, and the Russian Academy of Sciences, RAN, served as the customers of the resulting data. Because of the potential impact of solar activity on military operations, the Russian Ministry of Defense was also disclosed to be one of the customers. The scientific suit aboard Ionosfera-M included seven instruments:
Along with the instruments, the payload aboard Ionosfera-M included a special avionics unit, BKUSNI, designed to manage the incoming scientific data. Additionally, IKI in cooperation with NPP Astron Elektronika developed the Ozonometr-TM instrument, for ozone layer research, but it had to wait until the launch of the second Ionosfera-M pair. At the same time, the launch of the first two Ionosfera was to be accompanied by the deployment of a SamSat-Ionosfera cubesat among secondary payloads, for simultaneous measuring of plasma density. The Ionosphera project envisioned placing each pair of satellites into a separate plane of the 820-kilometer sun-synchronous orbit with an inclination 98 degrees toward the Equator. The first pair will be in the orbital plane whose ground track will be crossing the Equator from the Southern into Northern hemisphere at around 21:00 local time, while the second plane will be doing the same at 15:00 local time. Within each plane, the two satellites would be spread around 180 degrees from each other along the orbital circle for a comprehensive coverage of the ionospheric zone during a mission promised to last at least eight years. Three Rosgidromet ground stations of the Planeta space monitoring network located in the European (Moscow), Siberian (Novosibirsk) and Far-Eastern (Khabarovsk) regions of Russia, were equipped to receive scientific data from Ionosfera satellites. In turn, Rosgidromet's Receiving and Distribution Center, NKPOR, was made responsible for the processing and distribution of data. As is traditional for civilian spacecraft, Roskosmos' mission control center within the TsNIIMash research institute in Korolev near Moscow took responsibility for flight control of the satellites.
Known specifications of the Ionosfera satellite:
Secondary payloads Along with the two Ionosfera satellites, the Fregat upper stage was programmed to deploy 53 secondary payloads, a record number for the Russian launch, including 16 cubesats developed under the Space–π educational program. A total of 43 cubesats were accommodated inside standard launch containers provided by the Aerospeis Kapital contractor and attached to the Fregat stage. The same contractor also integrated 24 CubeSat-3U satellites for the SITRO-AIS Automatic Identification System used by ships. They were placed inside six 12U containers, each accommodating four 3U cubesats. Remaining payloads were to be released from containers provided by another Russian contractor called Orbitalnye Sistemy.
Secondary payloads aboard the Soyuz launch on Nov. 5, 2024:
First Ionosfera launch campaign
After many delays, in December 2016, Roskosmos awarded VNIIEM Corporation a formal contract for the full-scale development of the Ionozond-2025 system. However, in February 2017, the budget for the project was slashed pushing the launch of the Zond-M satellite beyond 2025. By that time, the development of the Ionosfera-M satellites was largely finalized and their initial production had already started. At that point, the launch of the first pair was promised in 2023, followed by the second pair a year later. (1072) During 2019 and 2020, the development went smoothly enough for officials to advance the launch date of the first pair from 2023 to the April-June 2021 period, but the project inevitably fell back to the original schedule. In 2022, the launch of the first pair was set for Dec. 5, 2023, but during September 2023, the mission was pushed back until Dec. 10, 2023, at 02:18 Moscow Time, and to Dec 12, 2023. By November 2023, the mission was postponed until May 21, 2024, but by that time, the launch slipped to Nov. 5, 2024, which remained on track. On Aug. 27, 2024, Roskosmos announced that specialists from its TsENKI ground infrastructure division in Vostochny and engineers from NPO Lavochkin had begun preparations of the Fregat upper stage, marking the start of the launch campaign for the Ionosfera-M mission at Vostochny spaceport. On Sept. 4, 2024, the joint TsENKI-NPO Lavochkin team transferred the Fregat from its processing site to the fueling facility. The loading of the propellant components and pressurized gases aboard the stage was initiated on September 5. Two Ionosfera primary payloads for the mission were delivered by truck to the storage facility (INSIDER CONTENT) of the processing center in Vostochny on the morning of Sept. 27, 2024, where the transport containers were cleaned and the satellites were transferred to the spacecraft processing building for upcoming electric and pneumatic tests, which were completed by October 11, Roskosmos said. The payload section for the Ionosfera mission was fully assembled by Oct. 30, 2024, and it was then integrated with the Soyuz launch vehicle on November 1. On the same day, the State Commission overseeing the campaign cleared the rocket for the rollout to Pad 1S, which took place on Nov. 2, 2024.
A Soyuz-2-1b rocket with a Fregat upper stage will lift off from the Soyuz launch complex in Vostochny on Nov. 5, 2024, at 02:18:40.459 Moscow Time. After a few seconds of vertical ascent under the power of the four boosters of the first stage and the core booster of the second stage, the rocket headed northwest across eastern Russia, aligning its trajectory with a near-polar orbit inclined around 98.57 degrees toward the Equator. The four strap-on boosters of the first stage separated 1 minute 59 seconds after liftoff in order to crash at Drop Zone No. 981 in the Amurskaya Oblast (Amur Region) on the border between the Tynda and Zeya Districts. The fairing protecting the payload then split in two halves and separated during the operation of the second stage at 3 minutes 47 seconds in flight. As a result, its fragments fell at Drop Zone No. 983 in the Aldan District in the Sakha (Yakut) Republic. Moments before the second stage completed its firing 4 minutes and 48 seconds into the flight, the RD-0124 engine of the third stage began to fire through the inter-stage lattice structure, which moments later separated along with the second stage 4 minutes and 48 seconds after liftoff. Just 1.5 seconds later, the tail section on the third stage split into three segments. Both, the second-stage booster and the segments of the tail section were to impact the ground at Drop Zone No. 985, in the Vilyusk District, located farther north in the Sakha Republic. The third stage continued firing, inserting the Fregat upper stage and its passengers into an orbit with an apogee (highest point) of around 196 kilometers and a perigee of just 12 kilometers or well in the dense atmosphere. As a result, after its engine cutoff and separation from Fregat, 9 minutes 24 seconds after liftoff, the third stage began a long free fall back to Earth over the Arctic and Northern Atlantic Oceans. Its trajectory was designed to bring the flaming debris of the booster crashing into the Atlantic Ocean. Space tug flight profile Following its split from the third stage, the Fregat was programmed to fire its engines over the Arctic Region 10 minutes 23 seconds after liftoff for around 1.5 minutes to ensure its insertion into a transfer orbit. The stack was expected to climb passively for around 46 minutes before Fregat had to fire for the second time near the apogee of its initial orbit, this time over the Antarctica, 51 minutes 33 seconds after liftoff. The maneuver, lasting less than a minute, was designed to insert the vehicle into a nearly circular orbit around 830 kilometers above the Earth's surface. Around a minute later, or 56 minutes 15 seconds after liftoff, the pair of Ionosfera satellites was programmed to eject from Fregat's payload adapter, completing the main task of the mission. Roskosmos did confirm that the Ionosfera satellites had been released into the planned orbit. Because the initial engine firings had to be performed by the Fregat beyond the view of Russian ground stations, their successful completion had to be confirmed during the subsequent passes of the vehicle over Russia. After the successful release of its primary payload, the Fregat embarked on a pre-programmed sequence to deliver its secondary payloads into their orbits. According to Roskosmos, all the payloads were deployed as planned. For the unknown reason, the US Space Force posted the first orbital elements for the Ionosfera mission a whole month after its launch. The pair of satellites was listed in a 820-kilometer circular orbit with an inclination 98.8 degrees toward the Equator. The secondary payloads were found to be in either in a 480 by 500-kilometer orbit or in a 583 by 593-kilometer orbit.
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