Moscow | Russia successfully launched on Monday, nearly six years after the previous test, its next-generation Angara rocket, the first developed in the country since the fall of the Soviet Union.
The only launch of a heavy Angara rocket dates back to the end of December 2014, but since then delays have accumulated on this program intended to replace the aging Proton launchers, whose technology dates back to the 1960s.
The rocket lifted off Monday as agreed from the Plessetsk military cosmodrome (north) at 5:50 a.m. GMT.
“At the scheduled time, 12 minutes 28 seconds after takeoff, the orbital block of the Angara A5 rocket (…) separated from the third stage”, said in a statement the Roskosmos space agency, welcoming a launch ” success”.
“She flies, damn it!” Roskosmos boss Dmitry Rogozin wrote on Twitter, accompanied by a photo of the rocket on its launch pad.
An Angara rocket, in its light version, was also launched in July 2014.
The Angara rocket was designed to replace Proton launchers, the earliest versions of which date from the 1960s and which suffered several embarrassing failures in recent years, causing a crisis in the Russian space sector.
A commission of inquiry then discovered faults in most engines produced for Proton rockets.
The Angara also uses cleaner technology, since it is powered by a mixture of kerosene and liquid oxygen, much less polluting than the toxic propellants used for Proton launchers.
The Angara program has however fallen behind schedule and the timetable set by the Russian authorities at the time of the first test, in 2014, has not been respected. The rocket that took off on Monday should initially have taken off on November 3, a date that has been postponed several times.