Posted: Tue, Aug 19, 2003, 2:28 PM ET (1828 GMT)
A Kosmos rocket successfully launched two Russian military satellites on Tuesday, according to Russian media reports. The Kosmos-3M booster lifted off from Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia at 6:50 am EDT (1050 GMT). Russian reports offered no other details other than to say that the spacecraft, designed Kosmos 2400 and 2401, successfully reached orbit. Western analysts have suggested that these spacecraft may be low data rate store-and-forward military communications satellites of the Strela-3 class. The launch was reportedly moved up on relatively short notice, forcing the commercial launch of three remote sensing satellites of the Disaster Monitoring Constellation to be delayed from late July until September.

Related Links:

•  RIA Novosti article
•  AFP article
•  SPACE.com article