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Satnews Daily
June 29th, 2016

The Scientific Instruments Aboard Russia's Aist-2D Smallsat Have Been Activated



Artistic rendition of the Russian AIST-2D smallsat.

Operators of the Russian Aist-2D satellite, which was placed into orbit in April, have activated the satellite's scientific payload and have initiated research in accordance with the flight plan, the Samara University press service told Interfax.

The satellite is carrying six packages of scientific equipment, five of which were designed by Samara University. A Soyuz-2.1a launch vehicle carrying the Lomonosov, Aist-2D and SamSat-218 satellites blasted off from the Vostochny cosmodrome on April 28th.


he Soyuz-2.1a carrier rocket launches with the three Russian satellites aboard: Lomonosov, Aist-2D and SamSat-218. Photo is courtesy of Olesya Kurpyaeva.

The Aist-2D is a Russian remote sensing satellite with a resolution of up to 1.5 meters. The satellite was designed and built by engineers of the Progress State Research and Production Space Center and Samara University's Institute of Space Instruments Engineering. The Samara-based Progress press service said in May that the Aist-2D had just captured the first photograph of the Earth's surface from orbit.

The Aist-2D is also carrying a portion of the Contact scientific research complex created by engineers of the Progress State Research and Production Space Center and Samara University's Institute of Space Instruments Engineering, tasked with testing microsatellite control technology. The other part of the Contact complex consisted of SamSat-218 nanosatellites, which evaded stable contact with the mission control center after the launch.


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