Posted: Sun, Jul 27, 2008, 11:15 AM ET (1515 GMT)
A Soyuz 2 rocket placed a classified Russian satellite into orbit late Saturday, Russian officials announced. The Soyuz 2-1b rocket, a modernized version of the workhorse Soyuz vehicle, lifted off from the Plesetsk Cosmosdrome in northern Russia at 2:31 pm EDT (1831 GMT) and placed the payload, Kosmos 2441, into a sun-synchronous orbit nine minutes later. The spacecraft is believed to be the first in a new generation of reconnaissance satellites called Persona. The launch, not announced in advance, was delayed a day because of software problems, according to the Russian news service Itar-Tass. The launch is the fifth for the Soyuz 2 family and the second of the 1b variant, which uses a new engine in its upper stage.

Related Links:

•  Spaceflight Now article
•  Itar-Tass article
•  AFP article