The Iskra satellites were a series of soviet amateur communications satellites built by students and radio amateurs at the Ordzhonikidze Aviation Institute.
The satellite was powered by solar cells. It was equipped with a transponder, a telemetry beacon, a ground-command radio, a codestore message bulletin board, and a computer with memory. The satellite transponders received at 21 MHz and transmitted at 28 MHz. Their telemetry beacons were near 29 MHz.
Controlled by ground stations at Moscow and Kaluga, Iskras were intended for communication among Eastern Bloc hams in Bulgaria, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Laos, Mongolia, Poland, Romania, USSR and Vietnam.
Iskra 1 was launched piggy-back on 10 July 1981, on an Vostok-2M rocket from the Northern Cosmodrome at Plesetsk to a 400-mi.-high polar orbit. After 13 weeks, it burned in the atmosphere on 7 October 1981.
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