The Russian Federal Space Agency Roscosmos plans to launch 18 satellites for US space communication provider Globalstar from the Baikonur spaceport by the end of 2011, the Interfax news agency reported this week citing a source in the Russian aerospace industry. According to the source, there will be a total three launches with payloads of six second generation Globalstar-2 satellites each scheduled for July 11, October 12 and December 15, respectively.
Globalstar is a low earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellation of 32 satellites for satellite phone and low-speed data communications. With over 315,000 subscribers as of June 2008, Globalstar is the world’s largest provider of mobile satellite voice and data services. Globalstar offers these services to commercial and private users in more than 120 countries around the world.
The satellites launched from Baikonur will complement an additional 24 satellites that will be put into orbit by the European space launch company Arianespace for the Globalstar network.
From February 1998 to February 2000, 52 first generation Globalstar satellites were launched by seven US Delta 2 rockets and six Russian Soyuz-U rockets. In September 1998, twelve Globalstar satellites were lost during the crash of the Russian-Ukrainan Zenith-2 rocket. In 2007, eight additional first generation Globalstar satellites were launched by Soyuz-FG rockets to replenish Globalstar’s orbital group. The first six Globalstar satellites of the second generation were launched by the Soyuz-2-1A rocket from Baikonur on October 19, 2010.
Sources: ComNews.ru
