A Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket will blast off in the autumn to deliver Russia’s Gonets communications satellites into orbit along with 15 foreign space vehicles as a hosted payload, Deputy CEO of Glavkosmos commercial launch operator Vitaly Safonov announced on Thursday. This reported by TASS.

"As part of the launch of Gonets space vehicles in the autumn of this year, there are plans to orbit an additional payload of 15 foreign-made small satellites and four small space vehicles of Russian universities," the deputy chief executive said.

Over 140 small satellites have been delivered into a low near-Earth orbit jointly with the launches under the federal space program since 2014, Safonov said. Currently, the issue of delivering small satellites into geostationary orbits is being explored, he added.

A source in the Russian space industry earlier told TASS that the first launch of Gonets-M communications satellites atop a Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket was planned for the end of September from the Plesetsk spaceport.