Agence France-PresseDec 15, 2020 09:55:54 IST
Russia on Monday performed a second launch of its new heavy-class Angara rocket — the primary developed after the autumn of the Soviet Union — almost six years after its maiden voyage. Area company Roscosmos introduced that the next-generation Angara-A5 rocket had been efficiently launched with a mock payload from Plesetsk in northern Russia at 0550 GMT. Twelve minutes and 28 seconds after the launch, “the orbital block consisting of the Breeze-M higher stage and the spacecraft’s cargo mockup separated from the third stage of the service”, Roscosmos mentioned in a press release.
A take a look at launch of a heavy-class service rocket – Angara – was carried out by the Russian area company. Picture credit score: Russian Ministry of Defence
Company head Dmitry Rogozin welcomed the information on Twitter, posting an image of the rocket and writing: “She flies, rattling it!”
The one different launch of the heavy-class Angara rocket befell in late December 2014, whereas a take a look at of a lighter class model of the rocket was performed in July that yr.
The Angara rockets — named after a Siberian river flowing out of Lake Baikal — are the primary new household of launchers to be constructed after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
They’re designed to switch the Proton rockets that date again to the 1960s and have suffered a collection of embarrassing failures lately.
President Vladimir Putin hopes the brand new launchers will revive Russia’s area business and scale back reliance on different former Soviet nations.
Officers say the heavy-class Angara rocket is extra environmentally pleasant than its predecessors as a result of it’s fuelled by oxygen and kerosene reasonably than massively poisonous heptyl.
The Russian area programme despatched the primary man into area in 1961 and launched the primary satellite tv for pc 4 years earlier.
However for the reason that collapse of the us in 1991, it has been suffering from corruption scandals and a collection of different setbacks, dropping costly spacecraft and satellites lately.
