On February 6, 2023, at 17:12:52 GMT, the Russian space agency Roscosmos launched a Proton-M carrier rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome 81/24 to place the fourth Elektro-L hydrometeorological satellite into geostationary orbit (GEO).
The Proton-M serial number 93568 and Blok DM-03 upper stage number 7L were used.
According to reports, the satellite is mainly used to carry out atmospheric and marine environmental elements detection, space environment detection, disaster prevention and mitigation and scientific experiments and other tasks. The launch was the 428th flight of the Proton family of launch vehicles.
The mission is the first of three launches scheduled for Proton in 2023, with the next launch scheduled for March. It is worth noting that Proton-M is in the process of being retired and the number of launches available will gradually decrease in the coming years.
The first Elektro-L satellite was launched in 2011 and stopped working in 2016, failing to meet its 10-year goal; the second satellite went into space in 2015 and the third into orbit in 2019, both of which are currently operating as expected.
In addition, Russia intends to replace the four Electro-L satellites with three Elektro M satellites after 2025. In fact, the Elektro-L satellites should be preceded by Elektro-1, which was launched in 1994 but was never fully operational.
Elektro-L is a series of meteorological satellites developed by Roscosmos, the Russian Federal Space Agency, and they are the first Russian meteorological satellites to operate in geostationary orbit. Each satellite has a mass of about 1620 kilograms and a service life of 10 years.
They are capable of taking visible and infrared spectral images of the Earth in the hemisphere, providing climate change and ocean monitoring data, as well as weather forecasting data.
The Elektro-L satellites were developed by NPO Lavochkin and are operated by Roscosmos, and they work together with the Meteor-M series of polar-orbiting meteorological satellites. The data collected by the satellites are distributed to the Scientific Research Center for Space Hydrometeorology “Planeta” and the Russian Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring.
