|
|
|
    
|
||||||||||
Soyuz launches classified payload Military personnel in Plesetsk opened Russia's orbital launch count of 2026 with a liftoff of a Soyuz-2 rocket carrying multiple secret satellites on February 5.
Soyuz-2 rocket mission on Feb. 5, 2026, at a glance:
As early as Jan. 26, 2026, Russian authorities issued warnings for sea and air traffic in the Barents and Norwegian Seas for a rocket launch planned during a period from Feb. 2 to Feb. 12, 2026, during a seven-hour window from 15:00 to 22:00 UTC. However, according to another announcement, the launch period extended only from Feb. 2 to Feb. 7, 2026. The projected impact sites were located along a ground track to a near-polar Sun-synchronous orbit with an inclination around 97 degrees toward the Equator, previously used by Soyuz rockets carrying various military payloads such as Bars-M cartography satellites. One site, off the coast of the Kola Peninsula in the Barents Sea, would be used to drop a payload fairing, while the second location, south of Svalbard Archipelago, would receive the remnants of the second stage. Strangely, the impact area for four boosters of the first stage in the Southern Section of the White Sea was announced with two warnings issued in a short sequence at the end of January: one extending from Feb. 2 to Feb. 7, 2026, and another from Feb. 8 to Feb. 12, 2026, hinting two launches of Soyuz rockets in the same direction. Shortly thereafter, another warning appeared for an area in the Pacific Ocean, which matched the impact distance for the third stage of the Soyuz rocket after its flight on a ballistic trajectory, which indicated that the upcoming mission would feature a Fregat upper stage, which would complete the insertion of the classified payload into an initial orbit. Another restriction zone in the Pacific Ocean, south of Australia, looked typical for the surviving debris of the Fregat stage after its controlled deorbiting. Hours before the opening of the first launch window on Feb. 2, 2026, an additional warning was issued during a period from Feb. 8 to Feb. 11, 2026, for a section of the Barents Sea, North of Cola Peninsula, which again matched an impact zone for the payload fairing of the Soyuz rocket — another indication that a dual launch campaign had been underway. The first Russian launch of 2026 ultimately took place on Feb. 5, 2026, from Site 43 in Plesetsk. According to a poster on the Novosti Kosmonavtiki web forum, the State Commission gave the green light to the fueling of the rocket at 18:53 Moscow Time, in preparation for a liftoff at 21:57 Moscow Time (1:57 p.m. EST). However, according to Roskosmos and the Russian military, the liftoff took place at 21:59 Moscow Time. The Soyuz-2.1b rocket carried multiple spacecraft for the Ministry of Defense. 
|
|
|||||||||
|
