OREANDA-NEWS. July 24, 2009. This morning Russian space industrial specialists began prelaunch operations with Meteor-M satellite delivered to the space port the day before.

After the visual inspection, the spacecraft will be accomodated in the vaccum chamber for pneumo-vacuum tests.

After the leak-check, the satellite will be transported to site 31 of the space port for further prelaunch processing.

Soyuz-2.1b launcher with the Fregat upper stage are planned for launch in mid Sept. 2009. In addition to Meteor-M, the LV will loft small spacecraft Sterkh, University-2, UgatuSat, ZA-002, Blitz and experimental system Iris.