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Government commission approves launch from Vostochny spaceport on April 28

It will be the second launch attempt

© Marina Lysceva/TASS

VOSTOCHNY SPACEPORT /Amur Region/, April 28. /TASS/. A government commission at the Vostochny spaceport has approved of the decision to carry out the first launch of the Soyuz-2.1a space rocket on Thursday, the space rocket corporation Roscosmos has said.

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Glitch that delayed first Vostochny launch identified — source

"A decision has been made to carry out the launch at 05:01 Moscow time on April 28," Roscosmos said.

It will be the second launch attempt. The rocket was initially scheduled to be launched in the small hours on April 27. Ninety seconds before blastoff the launch was aborted.

The Soyuz rocket is to put in orbit three satellites - Lomonosov, Aist-2D and SamSat-218.

Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said on Wednesday that President Vladimir Putin has made a decision to stay at the Vostochny Spaceport till the government commission meets in session in the morning of April 28 to set a rocket launch date. If the commission opts for staging another launch attempt Thursday morning, Putin will be present at the launch site to see the event, Peskov added.

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