Specialists from the Roscosmos state corporation installed the Proton-M launch vehicle with the Elektro-L No. 5 hydrometeorological satellite on the launch complex at Baikonur. After the rocket was raised to a vertical position, they continued pre-launch preparations, as the organization reported.
The launch is scheduled for February 12, 2026. This will be the first Proton launch in almost three years — the previous one took place in 2023 — and also the last for a DM-type upper stage.
Initially, the launch was scheduled for December 15, 2025 at 15:20 Moscow time, but it was postponed to eliminate discrepancies in the upper stage identified during inspections. Roscosmos noted that this would not affect the scientific program.
Elektro-L satellites in geostationary orbit provide multispectral images of cloud cover and the Earth's surface, the collection of hydrometeorological data, information exchange, and retransmission of signals from the COSPAS-SARSAT system. The first spacecraft in the series was launched in 2011, but contact with it was lost in 2016; No. 2 was launched in 2015, No. 3 in 2019.
Proton-M is an expendable Russian launch vehicle from the Proton family, developed in the 1960s. It is used to place navigation, military, commercial satellites, and interplanetary stations into orbit.
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