Article Posted on : - Jan 19, 2010

A file photo of European Space Agency's CryoSat-2.

MOSCOW (BNS): Russian space agency will launch two International satellites and a freighter to the International Space Station (ISS) in February, from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan, a media report said.

According to the RIA Novosti, Intelsat 16, CryoSat 2, and Progress M04M would be launched with three different carrier rockets, a space agency spokesman said.

The Soyuz-U vehicle will carry a Progress Mo4M to dock with ISS on February 3 at 6:45 a.m. (Moscow time).

Intelsat�s communication satellite �Intelsat 16� will be orbited with a Proton-M carrier on February 12 at 3:39 a.m. built by Orbital Sciences Corporation.

Later, the European Space Agency's CryoSat-2 Earth Explorer satellite will be launched with an RS-20 rocket on February 25, it said.

According to the ESA, the CryoSat mission is dedicated to "precise monitoring of the changes in the thickness of marine ice floating in the polar oceans and variations in the thickness of the vast ice sheets that overlay Greenland and Antarctica."