Russia reports successful launch of new Angara rocket

Russia successfully test-launched its new Angara rocket on Wednesday after a planned maiden flight overseen by President Vladimir Putin had to be aborted last month.

Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu told Putin that the next-generation Angara rocket was launched from Plesetsk at 1200 GMT, Russian news agencies reported, citing a defence ministry spokesman.

Twenty-one minutes after the launch, the rocket reached its planned target in the Far Eastern region of Kamchatka 5,700 kilometres (3,540 miles) away from the launch pad, the spokesman said.

"Yes to Angara!" deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin exclaimed on Twitter.

The Angara was initially scheduled to blast off from Plesetsk late last month when officials reported a sudden automatic launch abort in an embarrassing glitch broadcast live on national television.

Designed to succeed Soviet-era launchers, Angara is the first rocket to have been completely built after the collapse of the Soviet Union and it is designed to reduce Russia's reliance on other former USSR countries.

Officials say it is more environmentally friendly than its predecessors because it is fuelled by oxygen and kerosene rather than hugely toxic heptyl.

Russia Next-Generation Angara Rocket: Maiden Launch Scrubbed

Artist's concept of Russia's new Angara rocket on the launchpad.

Credit: Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center

A glitch has forced Russia to postpone today's (June 27) highly anticipated first flight of its new Angara rocket, according to media reports.

The Angara was scheduled to blast off today from Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northwestern Russia, but automated control systems detected a problem of some sort and aborted the launch during the final countdown, the news agency Reuters reported.

The launch has been delayed by at least 24 hours.

Russia has been working on the Angara rocket for more than 20 years, with the goal of securing the nation's access to space with a truly homegrown rocket.

"This is the first launch vehicle that has been developed and built from scratch in Russia," said Igor Lissov, an expert with the trade journal Novosti Kosmonovatiki, according to Reuters.

"Everything else we have is a modernization of our Soviet legacy."

Angara is designed to lift off from Plesetsk as well as Vostochny Cosmodrome, a facility now under construction in the Russian Far East. Russia wants to reduce its dependence on Kazakhstan's Baikonur Cosmodrome, currently the site of all of the nation's manned space launches and many of its unmanned efforts. (Russia has had to rent Baikonur since the Soviet Union dissolved in the early 1990s.)

First test launch of Russia's Angara rocket June 27

The first test launch of Russia's Angara light-weight rocket, initially set for June 25, may be conducted from the Plesetsk Cosmodrone in the Arkhangelsk region on June 27, a Russian space rocket industry source told reporters.

"Tomorrow the state commission is supposed to make a final decision concerning a date for the Angara launch. It is expected to set the launch for June 27, instead of June 25, as was planned earlier," the source said.

He blamed organizational reasons, not technical difficulties, for the possible postponement.

A universal family of light, medium and heavy-lift Angara launchers is being developed for lifting into orbit practically the entire range of payloads of the Russian Defense Ministry in the designated range of altitudes and orbit inclinations, including the geostationary orbit, and for guaranteeing the genuine independence of Russian military space programs.

Angara launchers will not be using aggressive or toxic fuel, which will significantly improve environmental safety both in the areas around the spaceport and in the zone where rocket fragments fall.

Russian Angara Rocket Launch Delayed until 2014

Angara rockets, designed to provide lifting capabilities of between 2,000 and 40,500 kilograms into low earth orbit, have been in development since 1995.

The launch of Russia's new Angara carrier rocket has been delayed by at least a year, Defense Ministry officials said on Monday.

The light-class Angara is to be launched in mid-2014 and its heavy-class version toward the end of the same year, Deputy Defense Minister Yury Borisov said.

The light-class Angara was previously due to be launched in 2013.

Deputy Defense Minister Col. Gen. Oleg Ostapenko said in late April that the new rocket would only be launched after the construction of a new facility at the Plesetsk space center is completed.

Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on Monday showed concern over the delays, saying the ministry would closely watch the development of the new rocket as a high priority project.

The development of the Angara is "very important," he said. "I will be regularly reviewing its progress in the course of weekly conference calls with the chief of the General Staff."

The Angara rocket family is a family of space-launch vehicles being developed by the Moscow-based Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center.

The rockets, which are to provide lifting capabilities between 2,000 and 40,500 kg into low earth orbit, are intended to become the mainstay of the Russian unmanned launcher fleet in the future and replace several existing systems. Angara rockets have been in development since 1995.

The rockets have a modular design similar to the US Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV), based on a common Universal Rocket Module (URM).

The main purpose of the Angara rocket family is to give Russia independent access to space.

The rockets will reduce Russia's dependence on the Baikonur space center it leases from Kazakhstan by allowing the launch of heavy payloads from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia and from the new Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia's Far East.