Postponed due to problems with the Fregat-M upper stages, the launches of the Soyuz-ST-A launch vehicles from the Kourou cosmodrome, which are supposed to put the UAE Falcon Eye 2 and French CSO-2 satellites into orbit, are scheduled for April and May of this of the year. It is reported by RIA Novosti with reference to its own source.
Earlier it became known that the launch of Falcon Eye 2 was postponed from March 6 to April due to the discovery of technical problems in the Fregat-M upper stage. Ultimately, it was decided to replace the upper stage with a similar one, intended for launching CSO-2 into space, due to which the launch of this satellite was postponed from April 10 to May.
Now it is assumed that the UAE Falcon Eye 2 satellite will be launched into space on April 14. As for the French device, its launch is scheduled for the second half of May. It is expected that this launch will use the Fregat-M upper stage, which was originally intended to launch British OneWeb satellites later this year.
In 2019, the launch of the Falcon Eye 1 on a Vega rocket from the site of the Kourou space center ended in failure due to problems with the second stage of the launch vehicle. After this incident, the UAE decided to launch the next satellite into orbit on a Soyuz-ST rocket.
In total, since the autumn of 2011, 23 launches of Soyuz-ST rockets have been carried out from the Kourou cosmodrome. Due to problems with the upper stage "Fregat" in 2014, the European navigation satellites Galileo were launched into an off-design orbit.
Source: 3dnews.ru