Russian Space Forces is scheduled to launch a Soyuz 2.1a rocket as part of the Bars-M No. 3 mission. The launch window for the Government/Top Secret mission is on December 31, 2019 00:00:00 UTC from 43/4 (43R), Plesetsk Cosmodrome, Russia. Don’t miss this exciting rocket launch! Watch the launch video of the Soyuz 2.1a and experience the excitement for yourself.

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Bars-M No. 3

Bars-M is the second incarnation of the Bars project, which was started in the mid 1990ies to develop a successor for the Komtea class of area surveillance satellites. The original Bars project was halted in the early 2000s. In 2007, TsSKB-Progress was contracted for Bars-M, for which reportedly the Yantar-based service module was replaced by a new developed advanced service module.

The Bars-M satellites feature an electro-optical camera system called Karat, which is developed and built by the Leningrad Optical Mechanical Association (LOMO), and a dual laser altimeter instrument to deliver topographic imagery, stereo images, altimeter data and high-resolution images with a ground resolution around 1 meter.