Assembly took place in Bulgaria, and the spacecraft was launched from Plesetsk in 13:35 local time on 7 August 1981.
Its name honors Galaktion Alpaidze, a Soviet military leader and chief of the Plesetsk rocket proving ground.
Plesetsk is not ideally suited for low inclination or geostationary launches because of its high latitude of 62 degrees north (as compared to the Guiana Space Centre at 5° north or the Kennedy Space Center at around 28° north).
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The existence of Plesetsk Cosmodrome was originally kept secret, but it was discovered by British physics teacher Geoffrey Perry and his students, who carefully analyzed the orbit of the Cosmos 112 satellite in 1966 and deduced it had not been launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome.
A single launch pad was operational at Baikonur and from six to eight were in operation at Plesetsk.