Posted: Fri, Sep 27, 2002, 2:13 PM ET (1813 GMT)
A Russian Kosmos booster successfully launched a navigation satellite Thursday. The Kosmos-3M booster lifted off from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia at 11:30 am EDT (1530 GMT) Thursday and placed the Nadezhda-M satellite into a 1,000-kilometer low-Earth orbit. The spacecraft will be used to provide navigation services, primarily to ships, and also carries a transponder for the COSPAS-SARSAT search-and-rescue system. It was the second Russian launch in as many days, after a Soyuz rocket launched a Progress cargo spacecraft to the International Space Station on Wednesday.

Related Links:

•  SPACE.com article
•  AP article
•  Astronautix.com entry about Nadezhda-M