Foton 11 & Mirka
Soyuz U
Strategic Rocket Forces
Mission
Foton 11 & Mirka
- Type: Planetary Science
- Orbit: Low Earth Orbit
Foton was a series of Soviet and later Russian material sciences research satellites. Mirka is a dedicated research capsule solely for performance of re-entry experiments.
Location
43/3 (43L)
Plesetsk Cosmodrome, Russian Federation
43/3 (43L) has witnessed the launch of 229 rockets, including 229 orbital launch attempts. While Plesetsk Cosmodrome, Russian Federation, has been the site for 1672 rocket launches.
Plesetsk Cosmodrome is a Russian spaceport located in Mirny, Arkhangelsk Oblast, about 800 km north of Moscow and approximately 200 km south of Arkhangelsk. Originally developed as an ICBM site for the R-7 missile, it also served for numerous satellite launches using the R-7 and other rockets. Its high latitude makes it useful only for certain types of launches, especially the Molniya orbits, so for much of the site's history it functioned as a secondary location, with most orbital launches taking place from Baikonur, in the Kazakh SSR. With the end of the Soviet Union, Baikonur became a foreign territory, and Kazakhstan charged $115 million usage fees annually. Consequently, Plesetsk has seen considerably more activity since the 2000s.
Agency
Strategic Rocket Forces
The Strategic Rocket Forces of the Russian Federation are a separate-troops branch of the Russian Armed Forces that control Russia's land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).
