Russia has successfully launched its Angara A5 rocket, the second successful test flight of the rocket officials said.
Russia has successfully launched its Angara A5 rocket, the second successful test flight of the rocket, officials said.
The heavy-lift rocket took off on Monday morning from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in northwest Russia.
Heavy lift rockets are used to transport instruments into low-Earth orbit.
“It flies, damn it!” Dmitry Rogozin, head of Russia’s space agency Roscosmos, tweeted after the launch.
It has been more than six years since the first successful test launch of the rocket, which at the time in 2014 was hailed by Russian President Vladimir Putin as “a major achievement for our space rocket industry and for Russia in general.”
Its development and manufacturing have been plagued by delays and technical problems.
Roscosmos on Monday touted the increased environmental safety of the Angara rockets, as they “do not use aggressive and toxic propellants, significantly increasing environmental safety both in the areas adjacent to the launch complex and in the drop zones.”