Posted: Sun, Jun 10, 2001, 10:44 PM ET (0244 GMT)
A Russian Kosmos-3M rocket successfully launched a military navigation satellite Friday, sources reported this weekend. The Kosmos-3M rocket lifted off from Plesetsk, Russia at 12:12 pm EDT (1612 GMT) June 8. It placed into an inclined low Earth orbit a spacecraft identified only as Kosmos-2378. The online publications SPACEandTECH and Russian Space Web both noted that the orbit is consistent with the spacecraft being a Parus navigation and communications satellite for the Russian Navy. The launch was the first for the Kosmos-3M since the failed launch last November of the QuickBird-1 commercial remote sensing satellite for the American company EarthWatch.

Related Links:

•  SPACEandTECH article
•  Russian Space Web