Russian Soyuz rocket successfully launches satellite after failed Progress mission

Russia successfully launched a military satellite on Friday by a Soyuz-2.1a space rocket, the Defense Ministry said.

A medium class Soyuz-2.1a rocket carrying a military satellite lifted off at 18:24 Moscow Time (1524 GMT) from Plesetsk cosmodrome in Russia's northern Arkhangelsk region, an online official statement said, adding that "the launch vehicle was in the normal mode".

Meanwhile, a spokesman for Russian Aerospace Defense Forces confirmed that the satellite has been put into the designated orbit after a "routine-mode" separation from the carrier rocket.

This was the first launch of a Soyuz-2.1a rocket after the failure of the Progress-M27M mission in April.

On April 28, a Progress M-27M cargo spacecraft was launched by a Soyuz-2.1a carrier rocket from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan and was expected to dock with the International Space Station six hours after the blast-off.

The mission, however, failed as the spacecraft went into an uncontrolled spin in space and eventually kept dropping in orbit, which led to its re-entry into the atmosphere and burn-up on May 8.

An investigation report released Tuesday showed the failure had been caused "by an unexpected design incompatibility" of the joint between the spacecraft and the rocket. Endite