After last October 10 launched the GLONASS navigation satellite (Globalnaya Navigatsionnaya Sputnikovaya Sistema) GLONASS-K1 No. 17 into low Earth orbit, then not long ago, on November 28, 2022, the Soyuz-2.1b rocket launched again from Site 43/3 at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome carrying the payload of the GLONASS-M satellite, or the last GLONASS satellite to orbit, the last GLONASS satellite it is named Kosmos-2564.
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Quoted from nasaspaceflight.com (28/11/2022), the launch was the first in a series of two launch packages from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in a three-day period, where the second launch, using the Soyuz-2.1a rocket, took place on Wednesday, 30 November 2022, but with an undisclosed payload.
GLONASS is a Russian radio-based satellite navigation system comparable to the United States' GPS (Global Positioning System) satellites, the European constellation of Galileo, or China's BeiDou system.
The operational GLONASS system consists of 21 satellites in three orbital planes, with three reserves in orbit. GLONASS satellites provide an accuracy of 100 meters with a C/A (deliberately degraded) signal and an accuracy of 10-20 meters with a P (military) signal.
The first generation of the GLONASS satellite was made under an embargo on foreign components and was suspected of having high radiation, because of that the GLONASS satellite had a lower design life, which was only three to seven years. With an average declining lifetime of just 22 months, Russia would need to launch at least seven satellites per year to maintain the constellation in operational status.
The first GLONASS-M satellite, Kosmos-2404, was launched on a Proton-K/Briz-M rocket on 10 December 2003. The second satellite was launched a year later on 26 December 2004. Previously launched in a trio, the first was launched on 25 December 2006.
With four more launches in 2009, there are a further 18 satellites in orbit, and a planned launch in 2009 will bring the constellation into operational status. The only launch planned in 2009 was using Proton-M/DM-3 and it ended up being with failure.
The launchers deviated from their planned trajectories and three satellites crashed back into the Pacific Ocean, 1500 km northwest of Honolulu.
Two years later, a single satellite launch aboard the Soyuz-2.1b/Fregat-M rocket, the launcher in use today, brought the constellation into operational status, sending the 24th operational satellite into orbit.
Soyuz-2.1b is one of three active variants in the Soyuz rocket family, and is most similar to early Soyuz rockets, using four liquid-propellant thrusters surrounding a central core. This design was also used on the Soyuz-2.1a but not on the Soyuz-2.1v, which did not use four side amplifiers and only used one core.
First introduced in 1996 and derived from the Vostok rocket, the Soyuz launcher initially had a poor launch record, with the first four flights ending in failure. The first successful flight of a Soyuz rocket occurred on 28 November 1966 with the launch of the first Soyuz spacecraft.
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