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Soyuz launches Resurs-P5 imaging satellite A Soyuz-2-1b rocket lifted off from Baikonur Cosmodrome on Dec. 25, 2024, carrying the fifth and final satellite in the Resurs-P series. It was the second launch of the dual-use observation satellite during the year and the 2000th mission of the vehicle in the R-7 family.
The Resurs-P5 mission at a glance:
The development of the two final Resurs-P satellites in the five-spacecraft series was ordered under contract No. 353-S083/14/407 awarded by Roskosmos to RKTs Progress in Samara on Dec. 22, 2014. Like its predecessor, Resurs-P5 featured several improvements in comparison with the first three satellites. (1036) On Dec. 9, 2024, Roskosmos announced that the Resurs-P5 had been delivered by rail to Baikonur Cosmodrome. The satellite was unloaded from the transport container at Site 112 and installed into its processing stand. On the same day, Roskosmos also confirmed that the Soyuz-2-1b rocket for the mission had arrived at Baikonur and been delivered to the vehicle processing building at Site 31 in preparation for electric checks. However, the State Corporation did not mention the launch date for the campaign at the time. On Dec. 12, 2024, the TsENKI infrastructure division at Roskosmos reported that its joint team with RKTs Progress and KTs Yuzhny center in Baikonur had begun preparing the launch pad at Site 31 for receiving the Soyuz-2-1b rocket for the Resurs-P5 mission "scheduled at the end of December 2024." The next day, the administration of the Karpinsk District in the Sverdlovsk Region issued a travel ban from Dec. 22 to Dec. 27, 2024, for an area limited by points 20 kilometers north of town of Kytlym, 10-12 kilometers northwest of Kakvinskie Pechi, 17 kilometers west of Sosnovka, 4-5 kilometers south of the border with the Denezhkin Kamen' nature reserve and 2-3 kilometers north of Konzhakovsky Gorge. According to the local authorities, the launch itself was planned for Dec. 25, 2024, at 10:45 Moscow Time, with a back-up date on December 26, with the impact sites in the Sverdlovsk and Perm Regions. Additionally, the town of Krasnovishersk in the Perm Region of Northern Russia announced a danger area in its district. In previous launches of Resurs-P satellites, these locations were used for dropping the second stage of the Soyuz rocket, the three segments of the aft section of the third stage and the two halves of the payload fairing. The fueling of the Resurs-P5 with propellant components and pressurized gases was reported completed on Dec. 16, 2024. The two-day operation was conducted at the ZNS fueling facility at Site 92A, after which the satellite was returned to the processing building at Site 112, where it was installed in its processing rig for final operations, Roskosmos said. By December 17, specialists at the vehicle assembly building at Site 31 attached the four boosters of the first stage to the core booster of the second stage. After the completion of the rocket assembly on December 22, the Soyuz-2-1b launch vehicle with the Resurs-P5 satellite was rolled out to launch pad at Site 31 on the morning of Dec. 23, 2024.
A Soyuz-2-1b rocket, carrying the Resurs-P No. 5 satellite, lifted off as scheduled on Dec. 25, 2024, at 10:45:42.376 Moscow Time (2:45 a.m. EST) from Site 31 in Baikonur. To deliver Resurs-P into a near-polar orbit, the launch vehicle headed almost exactly north from Baikonur to align its ground track with an orbit inclined 97.276 degrees toward the Equator in order to give the satellite a nearly global coverage of the Earth's surface. The four strap-on boosters of the first stage were dropped off less than two minutes after liftoff (at L+116.8 seconds) and then fell into Drop Zone No. 120 in Akhtyubinsk and Kostanai Regions in Kazakhstan. The core (second) stage of the rocket continued firing until 4.7 minutes into the flight and then separated at L+287.54 seconds in flight, reentering the dense atmosphere and crashing in Drop Zone No. 401 near the border of the Sverdlovsk and Perm Regions of Russia. In the next two seconds, the tail section of the third stage, which served as an interface with the core stage, split into three sections and separated from the third stage, aiming to impact the same drop zone as the second stage. The same area also received the two halves of the payload fairing, which were jettisoned 1.2 seconds after the separation of the tail section (at L+291.76 seconds). After firing for 9 minutes 17 seconds until L+559.58 seconds in flight, the third stage firing completed the orbital insertion of the satellite into an initial orbit, releasing it around three seconds after the engine cutoff (at L+562.88 seconds in flight). As expected, the US Space Force catalogued Resurs-P5 in a 287 by 467-kilometer orbit with an inclination 97.3 degrees toward the Equator. Operations in orbit During the fifth day of the flight, Resurs-P5 will likely fire its own propulsion system to enter a near-circular Sun-synchronous orbit with an altitude of between 468 and 477 kilometers. These orbital parameters should allow the satellite to revisit same areas of the Earth under similar lighting conditions from the Sun, thus resulting in consistent imagery. Resurs-P5 has a projected life span of at least five years and should have a capability for a controlled deorbiting over a safe area of the ocean after the end of service.
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