More than two decades in the making, the new generation Angara rockets are key to President Vladimir Putin's effort to reform a once-pioneering space industry

This article is more than 6 years old

This article is more than 6 years old

Russia declared the maiden flight of its new Angara rocket a success on Wednesday after it launched from Plesetsk cosmodrome near Arkhangelsk in the country’s far north.

The rocket blasted-off at 12 GMT Wednesday on a 21-minute suborbital flight to its target 5,700km away at the Kura test-range in Kamchatka.

The launch comes a month after a computer glitch forced the Russian Space Agency to abort an earlier maiden flight overseen by Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, and due to be broadcast live on national television.

Dmitry Rogozin, the Russian deputy prime minister in charge of the defence industry, celebrated Wednesday’s successful launch on Twitter, exclaiming: “‘Angara’ is there!” Footage of the launch was later broadcast by the Russian television agency, Zvezda.

Angara, named after a river in Siberia, is Russia’s first post-Soviet era rocket. The launcher is designed to reduce Russia’s reliance on components and facilities provided by other former Soviet Union countries.

The Angara rocket is built on a modular design that can be configured to suit its payload. For example, additional thrusters can be strapped on to the rocket to launch heavy payloads of around 7.5 tonnes into orbit.

The rockets are based around a “universal rocket module” powered by a single engine that burns kerosene and liquid oxygen.



Wednesday’s flight involved a custom version of the rocket, the 40metre-long, 180-tonne Angara 1.2pp light, which paves the way for the first orbital test flights of the rocket.



The simplest configuration can deliver a four-tonne payload into orbit.



Russia hopes the Angara rocket family will work well enough to replace many of the other rockets in the national fleet. Russia’s workhorse rockets are the Soyuz, which services the International Space Station, and the Proton, the largest and most powerful rocket the nation operates.



They have several others, including the Rokot for placing lightweight military satellites in orbit, and the Dnepr and Strela rockets for small commercial launches.

Russia intends to launch Angara rockets from Plesetsk and the Vostochny cosmodrome, which is still being built in the Russian far east.