Posted: Sat, Mar 27, 2004, 1:58 PM ET (1858 GMT)
A Proton rocket successfully launched a Russian military satellite early Saturday. The Proton-K lifted off from Baikonur at 10:30 pm EST Friday (0330 GMT, 6:30 am Moscow time Saturday) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The vehicle's payload, the Kosmos 2406 satellite, separated from the booster's Blok-DM upper stage about six and a half hours later. Russian officials would only say that the satellite will "build up Russian orbital military group". The launch was the second in less than two weeks for the Proton family of vehicles: on March 16 a Proton M, an updated version of the Proton, launched a commercial satellite for Eutelsat.

Related Links:

•  RIA Novosti article
•  Itar-Tass article