A Soyuz-ST rocket will take off from the Kourou Space Center in French Guiana, South America, on Monday evening to place in orbit four O3b satellites of the British company O3b Networks Ltd.

"The launch is due at 10:54 p.m. Moscow time on June 24," a Roscosmos source told Interfax-AVN.

The first stage will separate two minutes after the takeoff, the nose cone will separate at the fourth minute of the flight, and the second stage - seconds later. They will fall over the Atlantic Ocean. The Soyuz-ST third stage engine will turn on and the upper stage and the satellites will separate nine minutes after the launch. The stage will fall down near the western African coast.

The satellites will reach the target orbit in four impulses from the Fregat-MT upper stage engine.

The first satellite duo will separate from the upper stage at approximately 00:55 a.m. on June 25 after the first three impulses, and the second duo will be released after the fourth impulse, at approximately 1:15 a.m. There will be two more maneuvers of the upper stage to take the graveyard orbit.

The satellites will be deployed on the target orbit of 7,830 kilometers. They will create a new medium-orbit communications network providing telecom services and broadband Internet access to Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle Est.
