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State commission clears Angara-A5 heavy carrier rocket for test-launch from Vostochny

Platform is scheduled for 12:00 p.m. Moscow time on April 10, according to updated information

© Sergey Savostyanov/TASS

VOSTOCHNY COSMODROME /Amur Region/, April 10. /TASS/. The state commission has decided that an Angara-A5 heavy carrier rocket with an Orion booster is ready for the upcoming launch from the Vostochny spaceport in the Russian Far East, Roscosmos said in a statement.

"Today the state commission allowed fueling and test-launch of the first Angara-A5 heavy carrier rocket from the Vostochny spaceport," the statement said. The test-launch of the rocket from 1A Platform is scheduled for 12:00 p.m. Moscow time (9:00 a.m. GMT) on April 10, according to updated information.

Initially the test-launch of the rocket was scheduled for 12:00 p.m. Moscow time (9:00 a.m. GMT) on Tuesday. As Roscosmos Chief Yury Borisov explained later, the liftoff process was halted by automatic equipment two minutes before the launch due to a failure in the central unit’s oxidizer pressure tank.

In about 12 minutes after the launch, the Orion booster with test payload will separate from Angara’s upper stage.

This will be the first test-launch of an Angara carrier rocket from the Vostochny spaceport. Previously, Angara carrier rockets lifted off only from the Plesetsk space center in northern Russia. The first three launches of Angara heavy rockets from the Plesetsk spaceport in northern Russia took place on December 23, 2014, December 14, 2020 and December 27, 2021. The launch of a light Angara rocket took place on July 9, 2014 (the suborbital test flight), on April 29, 2022 (the orbital flight) and October 15, 2022 (the orbital flight).

The launch is expected to start flight development tests of the Amur rocket system that comprises the Angara rocket and the Vostochny spaceport’s infrastructure.

The Angara is a family of next-generation Russian space rockets. It consists of light, medium and heavy carrier rockets with a lifting capacity of up to 37.5 tons. The new family of rockets uses environmentally friendly propellant components.

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