ISS supply programme on track with successful Soyuz launch
03 Oct 2011
Moscow: Russia successfully launched a Soyuz rocket on Sunday with a GLONASS-M navigation satellite onboard. The International Space Station (ISS) partner nations will heave a sigh of relief now that the workhorse Russian Soyuz-2 rocket has had a successful launch after a crash of a similar rocket in August this year put the ISS supply programme in jeopardy.
The ISS partner nations depend on the workhorse Soyuz rockets to deliver crew and supplies to the ISS.
Russia has "successfully completed the launch of a Soyuz-2 rocket with the GLONASS-M (satellite) at 0015 (2015 GMT)," Colonel Alexei Zolotukhin was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.
The satellite was launched from the Plesetsk cosmodrome 800 kilometres (500 miles) south of Moscow.
In August, an unmanned Progress space ship carrying tonnes of cargo for the International Space Station (ISS) crashed into Siberia in August shortly after blast-off.
Sunday's launch, originally scheduled for late August, was repeatedly postponed as authorities conducted an intensive review following the cargo ship's crash.
