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The Soyuz-2 missile system is being constructed at the orders of the Russian Defense Ministry and the Federal Space Agency in order to accomplish defensive, scientific, and socioeconomic tasks.

The Soyuz-2 booster rocket is based on the series of Soyuz-U rockets that have operated successfully since 1973. The new booster rocket is a member of the family of largest and most reliable rockets, created on the basis of the R-7 rocket designed by Sergei Korolev. Soyuz-2 uses exclusively Russian components. The rocket will be able to launch all existing and planned medium-sized useful loads into space from the Plesetsk space launch centre.

As the Soyuz-2 rocket was modernized, the engines of all of the rocket’s stages were improved. This helped significantly increase the useful load and the dimensions of spacecraft that the rocket could put into orbit. A new digital control system supported by high-precision monitoring of useful loads has been developed. New systems of remote measurements have been put into operation.

The Soyuz-2 booster rocket is composed of three stages and a starting block, and is able to launch a useful load of about eight tonnes into orbit around the earth.

The first launch of a Soyuz-2 booster rocket was successfully carried out 8 November 2004 at the Plesetsk space launch centre. The second launch took place on 19 October 2006 at the Baikonur launch site. The next launch of the rocket booster Soyuz-2 with the Fregat starting block and the Meridian spacecraft is planned for 22 December 2006.

Together with the Fregat starting block, in the next 10 to 15 years the rocket booster Soyuz-2 will become the basic method for launching spacecraft to low altitude circular orbits and high altitude elliptical orbits.

One of the modified Soyuz-2 rocket boosters will also be used to launch useful loads from the space centre in Guiana (Kourou, French Guiana) within the joint project of the Federal Space Agency, TsSKB-Progress, the Starsem Company, the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company (EADS) and Arianespace.

The Fregat multipurpose starting block was established at the order of the Russian Defense Ministry at the research and production association Lavochkin. It is intended for launching multipurpose spacecraft into the orbits of the Earth’s artificial satellites and interplanetary trajectories by using average and heavy types of rocket carriers.

In order to ensure the reliability of the Fregat starting block, from the very beginning of the flight operation it was decided to use in it as many units, systems and components as possible that have already been created and successfully passed flight tests. Such an approach significantly reduced the cost and time required for establishing a starting block.

Within the Soyuz-2 booster rocket, the Fregat starting block is able to accomplish tasks involving transferring one or several spacecraft from supporting to working orbits and keeping them apart (for example, it will put two GLONASS-K spacecraft into working orbit). The Fregat ensures that the spacecraft benefits from a correct orientation before the moment of its division and also that it can exit from its working orbit independently, something that is especially important in the struggle against ‘space waste’.

The Meridian communications satellite is designed to ensure communication between vessels and airplanes involved in ice surveillance in the North Sea region, and coastal stations on the ground, as well as expand the network of satellite communications in the northern regions of Siberia and the Far East with a view to help the development of the Russian economy.

The Meridian satellites will be placed in a high-altitude elliptical orbit, something that will help increase the operational, technical and economic aspects of existing communication facilities. In the long-term, the Meridian spacecraft will replace the communications satellites and communications system based on satellites Gorizont and Express-A that are presently in use.