All news

Launch of Russia’s Proton-M carrier rocket from Baikonur postponed for one day

The blast off was delayed due to unfavorable weather conditions

MOSCOW, December 24. /TASS/. The launch of Russia’s Proton-M carrier rocket with the Express-AMU1 telecommunications satellite, scheduled for early Thursday morning from the Baikonur space center, has been postponed for one day, a spokesman for the Russian Space Agency (Roscosmos) told TASS.

"The launch has been postponed to a reserved date," the spokesman said adding that the blast off was delayed due to unfavorable weather conditions, namely strong winds, at the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan.

The spokesman added that the launch was initially scheduled for December 24, 12:30 a.m. Moscow time (21:30 GMT, Wednesday) but rescheduled now for December 25, 12:31 a.m. Moscow time (21:31 GMT, Thursday).

Express-AMU1 telecommunications satellite was manufactured by Europe’s Astrium, is intended to provide services covering Russia, Europe and Africa and has an operational lifetime of 15 years.