It was the first satellite to be launched as part of the Meridian system to replace the older Molniya series.

Meridian 1 was the first Russian Government satellite to be launched by a Soyuz-2 rocket.

The launch occurred from Site 43/4 at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome at 08:34:44 GMT on 24 December 2006.

[1] It was constructed by ISS Reshetnev (at the time known as NPO-PM) and was believed to be based on the Uragan-M satellite bus,[2] which has also been used for GLONASS navigation satellites.

NPO-PM reported that an impact with a piece of debris had caused the spacecraft to malfunction.