"Today at the Vostochny Cosmodrome, the state commission approved the fueling of the Soyuz-2.1b launch vehicle carrying a Fregat upper stage, the Meteor-M No. 2-4 hydrometeorological spacecraft and 18 Russian and foreign small satellites and its launch from pad 1C on February 29 at 08:43:26 Moscow time [05:43:26 GMT]," the spokesperson said.
Roscosmos said earlier that the deployment of Meteor-M into orbit would take approximately one hour, after which Fregat would deliver the remaining satellites to their target orbits.
In addition to the weather satellite, the rocket is carrying 17 satellites manufactured by Russian private company Sputnix, owned by Russian multidisciplinary IT company Sitronics Group. Of them, 16 satellites would be added to the SITRO-AIS constellation, the Russian automatic identification system for tracking marine vessels, and the Zorkiy-2M spacecraft will join the constellation of ultra-small Earth remote sensing satellites.
On Wednesday ahead of the launch, Iranian Communications Minister Eisa Zarepour said the Russian rocket will put into orbit the Pars-1 research satellite.