Russian Soyuz rocket delivers military intelligence-gathering satellite into orbit

Russia sent a spy satellite into orbit aboard a Soyuz rocket Feb. 2 from a snowy launch pad at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, setting off on a mission to detect, locate, and characterize foreign military radio signals. The military satellite took off at 2045 GMT (3:45 p.m. EST; 11:45 p.m. Moscow time) Feb. 2 on a Soyuz-2.1b rocket, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense. The defense ministry did not identify the type of satellite on the rocket, but the launch trajectory and the orbit of the payload indicated it is the next in a series of Russian military Lotos S1 intelligence-gathering spacecraft. More

(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Feb 9)