An international payload of satellites launched from Russia's new cosmodrome has failed to reach orbit and is feared lost in the ocean.

The Soyuz rocket carrying a Meteor-M weather satellite and 18 smaller spacecraft from Canada, Germany, Japan, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the US, took off on Tuesday from the Vostochny spaceport, which Moscow is building near the border with China in the far east.

Russia's space czar, deputy PM Dmitry Rogozin, declared the launch a success and congratulated the launch crew: “Thank you and good luck. Glory to Russia!”

But the state space agency Roscosmos later said although the upper stage had reached interim orbit, the satellite then failed to make contact with ground control “because of its absence in the final orbit”.