OMSK, December 19. /TASS/. Head of Russia’s space agency Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin praised the results of the Angara-A5 rocket launch and noted that this type of missile has great prospects, he told reporters on Saturday.
"The rocket’s launch went perfectly. Everyone is happy, so everyone immediately sees the great prospects of the Angara and also of the Omsk Polet," Rogozin said.
He noted that this launch was very important. "Six years after the first test launches, we can say that the team of the Khrunichev Center and the Omsk Polet have done a great job in order to make a new rocket, updated, which fully confirmed the customer's requirements for carrying capacity and launch accuracy," Rogozin added.
Rogozin said that the plans of the state corporation for the next year include creating one light and one heavy versions of Angara. "Perhaps something else. But for now, at least two missiles for sure," Rogozin said.
Angara-A5 heavy carrier rocket blasted off at 08:50 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 new 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 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.