by Jeff Foust — November 6, 2018 .
WASHINGTON — A Soyuz rocket successfully launched a European weather satellite Nov. 6, completing a constellation of polar-orbiting satellites and providing additional reassurance about the reliability of the Soyuz.
The Soyuz ST-B rocket lifted off from the Guiana Space Center in French Guiana on schedule at 7:47 p.m. Eastern. The Metop-C satellite on the rocket deployed from the Fregat upper stage one hour after liftoff.
“ The launch is the third for the Soyuz since an Oct. 11 failure during the launch of the crewed Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft, ”
The 4,084-kilogram satellite, built by Airbus Defence and Space for the European weather agency Eumetsat, is the third and final satellite in the Metop series of polar-orbiting satellites. The spacecraft joins Metop-A, launched in 2006, and Metop-B, launched in 2012, both on Soyuz rockets from Kazakhstan.
Metop-C will operate in the same 817-kilometer sun-synchronous orbit, with a mid-morning crossing time, as Metop-A and -B. The three satellites will be spaced 120 degrees apart in the orbit until the retirement and deorbiting of Metop-A, scheduled for 2022.
Metop-C carries nine instruments to collect imagery, temperature and humidity profiles in the atmosphere, and sea surface conditions, as well as monitor space weather conditions. That instrument suite includes three provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as part of cooperation with Eumetsat that includes sharing of data from the NOAA-20 satellite, which offers complementary observations from its mid-afternoon orbit.
The launch is the third for the Soyuz since an Oct. 11 failure during the launch of the crewed Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft, forcing the use of the rocket’s abort system to escape from the rocket and safely land downrange from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. A Soyuz rocket launched a military payload Oct. 24 from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia, while another launched a Glonass navigation satellite Nov. 3, also from Plesetsk.
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