Monitor-E

Monitor-E is the first Russian satellite of a fleet of newly designed, small Earth observing satellites. It was launched August 26, 2005 (local time) from Plesetsk Cosmodrome, and placed in a Sun synchronous orbit of 540 km.

Design

Monitor-E has a set of remote sensing devices. They are intended to make maps of the Earth's surface to be used for ecological monitoring and chart geological features. It was built by the Khrunichev State Space Research Center.

Specifications

Sensors

• 8 m panchromatic (0.51-0.85 µm), swath width of not less 90 km
• 20-40 m multispectral (0.54-0.59/0.63-0.68/0.79-0.90 µm), swath width of not less than 160 km

Onboard storage

• 2x200 gigabit capacity

Data communications

• Transmission speeds of 15.36/61.44/122.88 Mbit/s

Orbit

• Altitude: 550 km - 97.5 degree sun synchronous inclination

Spacecraft

• Active life: 5 years
• Orientation precision: 0.1 degrees
• Stabilization precision: 0.01 degrees
• Average daily power consumption: 450 W
• Weight: 750 kg

Communications problems

After launch communications with Monitor-E was difficult to establish, initially. But a few hours later it was successfully contacted. On October 19 new problems developed and no communication was possible since then. Later on communications were restored and photographs from both cameras have been published on November 30, 2005.

External links

• Description of spacecraft by NTs OMZ
• Description of spacecraft by Khrunichev (text in Russian)
• Launch news item
• space.com news after launch
• CNN news item on loss
• First two photographs published by Khrunichev (text in Russian)
• Photographs published by NTs OMZ (text in Russian)