Posted: Sat, Feb 3, 2018, 5:46 PM ET (2246 GMT)
A Soyuz rocket placed 11 satellites into orbit Thursday in the first launch from a new Russian site since a November failure. The Soyuz-2.1a rocket lifted off from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia's Far East at 9:07 pm EST Wednesday (0207 GMT Thursday). The rocket's primary payload was a pair of Kanopus Earth-observation satellites. The rocket also carried nine smallsat secondary payloads, including four Lemur-2 cubesats for Spire and D-Star One Phoenix, a German cubesat that is a replacement for one lost in a Soyuz launch from Vostochny in November.
