Russia launching a Soyuz rocket on Dec. 27. Photo: Glavkosmos

On Dec. 27, Russia successfully launched a Soyuz-2.1a rocket at 11:07 a.m. local time from the Vostochny Cosmodrome. The rocket carried the Kanopus-V-5/6 Earth remote sensing spacecraft along with 26 other satellites.

In accordance with the flight program, the Fregat upper stage injected primary and other payload satellites into a Low Earth Orbit (LEO). This was the first launch from the Vostochny Cosmodrome partially carrying commercial satellites.

The rocket carried the Germna ECM SmallSat Cluster comprised of the D-Star One (iSat), D-Star One (Sparrow), UWE-4, eight Lemur satellites, and the GRUS, launched as secondary payloads under contracts with JSC Glavkosmos.