Meteor-M No.2-1 (russian: Метеор-М №2-1), was a Russian satellite, part of

Meteor-M The Meteor spacecraft are weather observation satellites launched by the Soviet Union and Russia. The Meteor satellite series was initially developed during the 1960s.

series of polar-orbit weather satellite. It was launched using

Soyuz-2.1b Soyuz-2 (GRAU index 14A14) is a modernized version of the Soviet Soyuz rocket. In its basic form, it is a three-stage launch vehicle for placing payloads into low Earth orbit. Compared to the previous versions of the Soyuz, the first-stage bo ...

rocket with a

Fregat Fregat (russian: Фрегат, ''frigate'') is an upper stage developed by NPO Lavochkin in the 1990s, which is used in some Soyuz and Zenit launch vehicles, but is universal and can be used as a part of a medium and heavy class launch vehicles ...

upper stage on 28 November 2017; the satellite failed to separate from the Fregat and communication was later lost. The cause of failure was determined to be faulty programming. The satellite was programmed with a launch point of

Baikonur Cosmodrome The Baikonur Cosmodrome ( kk, Байқоңыр ғарыш айлағы, translit=Baiqoñyr ğaryş ailağy, ; russian: Космодром Байконур, translit=Kosmodrom Baykonur, ) is a spaceport in an area of southern Kazakhstan leased to R ...

, instead of the

Vostochny Cosmodrome The Vostochny Cosmodrome (russian: Космодром Восточный, ''Kosmodrom Vostochny'', "Eastern Spaceport") is a Russian spaceport (still partly under construction) above the 51st parallel north in the Amur Oblast, in the Russian ...

causing the satellite to enter an incorrect orbit. This was the second launch from the Vostochny Cosmodrome, the first civilian launch site in Russia. In addition to the ₽2.6bn Meteor-M weather satellite, 18 other scientific, research and commercial satellites from Russia, Norway, Sweden, the US, Japan, Canada and Germany were lost as well.

References

{{Orbital launches in 2017 Weather satellites of Russia 2017 in Russia Spacecraft launched in 2017 Satellite launch failures Spacecraft launched by Soyuz-2 rockets