By RIA Novosti,
Moscow : Russia has successfully launched a military satellite from the Baikonur space centre in Kazakhstan, a Space Forces spokesman said Saturday.
The satellite was put into orbit by a Proton-K rocket, Alexei Zolotukhin said, adding that the launch was “conducted in a normal mode”.
The Proton-K carrier rocket was developed on the basis of the UR-500 intercontinental ballistic missile by the Salyut design bureau making part of Russia’s Khrunichev State Research and Production Centre. The rocket was first launched in 1968.
There have been several thousand launches of the rocket since it was adopted. There are plans to use the rocket to deliver International Space Station modules to near-earth orbit.
Russia currently uses two launch sites for space carrier rockets and ballistic missiles tests: the Baikonur space centre in Kazakhstan, which it has leased since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the Plesetsk space centre in northwest Russia.