Russian-Ukrainian ‘Satan’ rocket blasts into orbit with 33-satellite load

[link to rt.com]

Russia’s Dombarovsky military air base saw the launch at 19:11 GMT Thursday, the 20th such rocket whizzing off into space.

Twenty-six minutes later, "all of the 33 satellites have separated from the rocket at the pre-set time and were put into their respective orbits," Kosmotras, the launch operator, said.

One of them was TabletSat-Aurora, which came as the first Russian private mini-satellite. Weighing just some 25 kilogram, the spacecraft is to observe the Earth, returning images with a resolution of up to 15 meters.

The satellite payload also included Perseus-M 1 and 2 (US), Deimos-2 (Spain), Hodoyoshi-3 and 4 (Japan), BRITE-CA 1 and 2 (Canada), BugSat-1 (Argentina), SaudiSat-4 (Saudi Arabia) and Duchifat-1 (Israel). The latter is an Israeli experimental and educational spacecraft developed and built by Israeli students of secondary schools.