MOSCOW. Aug 7 (Interfax) - A military satellite launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome on Monday has been put into its target orbit, the Russian Defense Ministry said.
"The Fregat upper stage put the spacecraft into orbit, and ground facilities of the Space Forces of the Russian Aerospace Forces took control of it," the ministry said.
Steady telemetric communication is now maintained with the spacecraft, the ministry said.
"The onboard systems of the spacecraft are functioning normally. The spacecraft has been assigned the serial number Kosmos 2569," the military said.
The Soyuz 2.1b launch vehicle launched smoothly, and the satellite was put into its intended orbit according to plan, the Defense Ministry said.
"After the launch, the rocket was tracked by the ground automatic control of the Main Test Space Center named after German Titov," the ministry said.
Officers of the Main Center for Space Exploration of the Space Troops of the Aerospace Forces added information on the spacecraft into the Main Catalogue of Spacecraft of the Russian Space Monitoring System, it said.