Algeria's ALSat-1 satellite brought to Plesetsk cosmodrome

An Algerian satellite, AlSat-1, was delivered to the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia's north on Monday afternoon, said Sergei Derevyashkin, a spokesman for the press-service of the Space Forces of Russia. According to him, the satellite is to blast off in the last days of November of this year.

"At the cosmodrome this satellite is already being expected by a Russian satellite, Mozhayets, brought here somewhat earlier. These two satellites will be launched by a Cosmos-3M light-class carrier rocket, which is already in the vehicle assembly building of the cosmodrome, in assembled form," he indicated.

According to Derevyashkin, as soon as the satellite arrived at the cosmodrome on Monday, work began to prepare it for blasting off.

According to information of AlSat-1 developers, this spacecraft has a weight of the order of 90 kilogrammes and is to be orbited to monitor the environment as well as natural and man-made catastrophes. It will also help the Algerian government in assessing the condition of farmlands and crop prospects. This satellite is to become part of an international satellite system for monitoring extreme situations operated by 7 countries.

The spacecraft Mozhayets, weighing 90 kilogrammes, has been developed and manufactured at the NPO of Applied Mechanics named after Academician Reshetnev (Zheleznogorsk, Krasnoyarsk Territory, Eastern Siberia), helped by instructors and personnel of the Mozhaisky Military Space Academy in St Petersburg. It is designed to train students of higher military educational establishments of the Space Forces in spacecraft operating methods and analysis of telemetric information arriving from space.

Both satellites are scheduled to be put into a synchronous solar orbit, at an altitude of about 700 kilometres from the Earth.