MOSCOW, December 14. /TASS/. A Briz-M booster of an Angara-A5 heavy carrier rocket delivered a payload mock-up into the designated orbit, the press office of Russia’s Defense Ministry reported on Monday.

"The Angara-A5 heavy carrier rocket that lifted off from the Plesetsk spaceport (the Arkhangelsk Region) at 08:50 Moscow time today, December 14, delivered an integral payload mock-up into the designated orbit within the required time," the press office said in a statement.

The rocket’s launch and the payload mock-up’s delivery into orbit by the Briz-M booster proceeded in the normal mode, the ministry specified

The Angara-A5 heavy carrier rocket blasted off at 08:50 a.m. Moscow time on December 14 from site No. 35 of the Russian Defense Ministry’s Plesetsk state testing spaceport in the northern Arkhangelsk Region. This was the second test-launch of the heavy Angara rocket. Twelve minutes after the blast-off, the rocket’s space head comprising a booster and an integral payload mockup separated from the third stage in the normal mode.

As Russia’s Defense Ministry specified, all the pre-launch operations and the rocket’s launch proceeded normally. The launch was carried out by a combat team of Russia’s Aerospace Force.

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 tonnes. The new family of rockets uses environmentally-friendly propellant components.

Until now, Russia carried out only two Angara launches, both of them from the Plesetsk spaceport: a light Angara-1.2PP blasted off in July 2014 and its heavy version lifted off on December 23, 2014, orbiting a payload mock-up of 2 tonnes.