All news

Roscosmos confirms Soyuz rocket launch from Kourou spaceport postponed

MOSCOW, April 23. /TASS/. Russia’s space agency Roscosmos has confirmed that the launch of the Sentinel-1B satellite atop the Russian Soyuz-ST launch vehicle from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana had been postponed due to unfavorable weather.

"The launch of a Soyuz-STA rocket from the Guiana Space Center has been again postponed because of bad weather. Now the launch is scheduled for 00.02 a.m. Moscow Standard Time on April 25 (09.02 p.m. GMT on April 24)," the space agency wrote on its Facebook page.

The satellite was to have been launched at 00.02 am Moscow Standard Time (09.02 pm GMT) on Saturday but the launch was delayed for 24 hours due to unfavorable weather conditions. A source with the Russian space sector told TASS that a decision had been made to postpone the blast-off for another 24 hours due to high winds at the spaceport.

Along with the spacecraft, three microsatellites - a Norwegian and French ones and a satellite of the European Space Agency (ESA) - will be put into orbit.

On February 16, a Russian light-class Rokot rocket with the ESA’s Sentinel-3A satellite blasted off from the Plesetsk cosmodrome (Arkhangelsk region in the northwest of Russia). In September another satellite - Sentinel-2b - is to be put into orbit by a Rokot launch vehicle.

The European Space Agency has planned seven missions within the project, with each launching special research gauges into space.

Tags