Soyuz Rocket Returns to Flight
Russia resumed launches of its Soyuz rocket today.
A Soyuz-2 rocket boosted a GLONASS-M navigation satellite into orbit at 20:15 GMT (16:15 EDT) today from Russia’s Plesetsk launch site. Everything seems to have gone well according to a report on Ria Novosti. The launch had been scheduled for yesterday (October 1), but was postponed because of bad weather.
There are several versions of the Soyuz rocket. The Soyuz-2 used today is similar, but not identical, to the one that failed in August when launching a Progress cargo spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS). Today’s launch is one of two that the Russians are using to recertify the rocket for launching crews to the ISS. Next is another Progress launch later this month on a Soyuz U. If that goes well, Russia plans to launch the next three ISS crewmembers on November 14 on the Soyuz FG version that is used for such missions.
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