Glonass-K1 (Kosmos 2501) Mission

Launch Service Provider

Russian Aerospace Defence Forces

Vehicle

Soyuz 2.1b Fregat

Glonass-K are the third generation of satellite design for GLONASS satellite navigation system. GLONASS is a Russian space-based navigation system comparable to the similar GPS and Galileo systems. This generation improves on accuracy, power consumption and design life. Each satellite is unpressurized and weighs 935 kg, and has an operational lifetime of 10 years.