Monitor-E was the first Russian satellite of a fleet of newly designed, small Earth observing satellites. It was launched 26 August 2005 at 18:34 UTC from Plesetsk Cosmodrome, and placed in a Sun-synchronous orbit of 524 by 544 km (326 by 338 mi).
The satellite was decommissioned 21 January 2008 and decayed from orbit 22 September 2020.
After launch, communications with Monitor-E was initially difficult to establish, but a few hours later it was successfully contacted and control was established.[5] On 19 October 2005 new problems developed and no communication was possible since then. Later on communications were restored and photographs from both cameras were published on 30 November 2005.
Launches are separated by dots ( • ), payloads by commas ( , ), multiple names for the same satellite by slashes ( / ). Crewed flights are underlined. Launch failures are marked with the † sign. Payloads deployed from other spacecraft are (enclosed in parentheses).