On October 25 at 19:08 UTC, a Russian Space Force Soyuz-2.1b launched the Glonass-K No. 15L satellite into orbit from LC-43/3 at Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia.

GLONASS is Russia’s global navigation satellite system like GPS, Galileo, or Beidou. This is the third satellite to be launched of the third generation of GLONASS satellites. The previous two were launched in 2011 and 2014.

According to a press release from Roscosmos, one of the improvements in this third generation of GLONASS satellites is that “Glonass-K carries two types of navigation signals – frequency-separated and code-separated. In addition to their main functions, they will transmit information from the COSPAS-SARSAT international search and rescue system.”

More Information

Roscosmos press release 

GLONASS-K info page (Gunter’s Space Page)