The Russian-made Angara-A5 space rocket launched from the Vostochny Cosmodrome on Thursday has put the Orion upper stage with a test payload into orbit, a Sputnik correspondent reported.
The space rocket was launched at 09:00 am GMT. The launch has been previously delayed for two days in a row.
Later on Thursday, the Orion upper stage successfully put the small Gagarinets satellite into low Earth orbit, Russian state space corporation Roscosmos said.
The satellite, of the CubeSat 3U type, was manufactured by private Russian company Avant Space and is designed to test technologies for developing satellites, Roscosmos added.
“The Orion upper stage continues bringing test payload into target orbit,” the corporation’s statement read. Since 2014, six Angara launches — three of light rockets and three of heavy ones — have taken place from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia’s Arkhangelsk Region. A total of 16 Soyuz-2.1 rockets have been launched from the Vostochny Cosmodrome since 2016.
The Kremlin welcomes the launch of the Russian-made Angara-A5 space rocket.
“We join in congratulating our rocket workers who launched Angara. We are happy together with them,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
Meanwhile, the Russian rocket and space industry still has a lot of work to do to ensure the reliability of the Angara rocket, which will launch a manned spacecraft in 2028.
“We still have a lot of work to do with this rocket to ensure its reliability. And in 2028, it will need to launch a manned spacecraft,” Russian state space corporation Roscosmos head Yuri Borisov told reporters after the first launch of the Angara-A5 rocket from he Vostochny cosmodrome.
