Russia launches ‘rocket’

MOSCOW: Russia launched its first rocket from a new cosmodrome on Thursday, a day after a technical glitch forced a postponement of the event in a sign of continuing crisis in the nation’s space industry.

An unmanned Soyuz-2.1A rocket, carrying three sat
ellites, roared into a clear blue sky from the launchpad at Vostochny cosmodrome
 in the remote Amur Region near China’s border at
0501 Moscow time (0201 GMT), state television showed. The satellites
separated from the rocket’s third stage about nine minutes into the flight and headed for their designated orbits, Russian news agencies quoted officials from the space agency Roscosmos as saying.

The launch was called off less than two minutes before lift-off on Wednesday, upsetting President Vladimir Putin.

He had flown thousands of kilometres to watch what Russian media and officials called a historic event.

“I want to congratulate you. There is something to be proud of,” Putin told cosmodrome workers and Roscosmos officials after watching Thursday’s launch at Vostochny, Russian media reported.

“The equipment overreached itself a little bit yesterday,” he said.

“In principle, we could have held the launch yesterday, but the equipment overdid its job and stopped the launch. This is a normal thing.”