Russia has launched its first rocket from a new cosmodrome 24-hours after a technical glitch forced lift off to be put back, much to the annoyance of President Vladimir Putin.
ADVERTISEMENTRussia has launched its first rocket from a new cosmodrome 24-hours after a technical glitch forced lift off to be put back, much to the annoyance of President Vladimir Putin.
First rocket launch from Russia's Vostoch… https://t.co/L8kAtbkS74#space#spacenews | https://t.co/p9Ik5zEzcMpic.twitter.com/zf0RlpnEHo
— Space Leaks (
spaceleak) <a href="https://twitter.com/spaceleak/status/725634190503350276">April 28, 2016</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <b></b>The craft an unmanned Soyuz-2.1A rocket loaded with three satellites headed for the cosmos from Vostochny cosmodrome in the remote Amur Region near China's border. <b></b> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"tw-align-center data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Watch the first rocket launch from Russia's new Siberian spaceport at 10:01 ET tonight: <a href="https://t.co/ERqEpql8kh">https://t.co/ERqEpql8kh</a> <a href="https://t.co/wMgRF1xiAw">pic.twitter.com/wMgRF1xiAw</a></p>— Air & Space Magazine (airspacemag) April 26, 2016
Despite his tantrum President Putin fully backs the Russian space programme:
“We have to build the ground infrastructure complex for launches of heavy rockets. We can’t exclude that we will build further infrastructure for super-heavy rockets, for manned mission missions.” The Vostochny spaceport, the first civilian rocket launch site on Russian territory, is intended to phase out Russia’s reliance on the Baikonur cosmodrome, which it leases from ex-Soviet Kazakhstan.