Military communications satellite launched from Russia

A Russian military communications relay platform blasted off Oct. 30 from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, riding a Soyuz rocket and Fregat upper stage into an egg-shaped orbit reaching nearly 25,000 miles above Earth. The satellite launched at 0143 GMT on Oct. 30 (9:43 p.m. EDT on Oct. 29) on top of a Soyuz 2-1a rocket from Plesetsk, Russian’s northern spaceport in the country’s Archangelsk oblast, the RIA Novosti news agency reported. A Fregat upper stage released from the Soyuz booster’s three-stage core vehicle fired three times to inject the Meridian communications satellite into an elliptical orbit with a low point of 600 miles and a high point of nearly 25,000 miles. More

(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Nov 3)