spacetoday.net: Russia launches navigation satellite

Posted: Sat, Feb 26, 2011, 10:15 AM ET (1515 GMT)
A Soyuz rocket launched a GLONASS navigation satellite on Saturday. The Soyuz-2.1 rocket lifted off from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia at 10:07 pm EST Friday (0307 GMT, 6:07 am Moscow time Saturday) and placed a GLONASS-K satellite into orbit. The launch had beens scheduled for Thursday but was postponed by a technical issue. The GLONASS-K is a lighter, modernized version of the GLONASS-M satellites that constitute most of the system. The launch was the first for the GLONASS system since three such satellites were lost in a Proton launch failure in December. Russia is working to fully reconstitute its GLONASS satellite constellation, its version of the American GPS satellite navigation system.