First satellites of Kepler’s constellation launched

This morning at 7:20 am EDT, a Russian Soyuz rocket launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northeastern Russia. On-board were three Russian Gonets M telecommunication satellites as the primary payload, along with 19 small satellites as the secondary payload, including the first two Generation One (Gen1) satellites for Kepler Communications Low Earth Orbit Internet of Things (IoT) constellation.