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Persei booster with payload mockup separates from Angara’s third stage

The orbital bloc will be put in orbit by the Persei booster under the routine nine-hour scheme, when the booster’s engine is switched on four times

MOSCOW, December 27. /TASS/. The Persei booster with a full-size payload mockup has separated from the third stage of the Angara-A5 heavy carrier rocket that was launched from the Plesetsk spaceport in Russia’s northwestern Arkhangelsk region, the Russian defense ministry said on Monday.

"The orbital block consisting of the Persei booster and the full-size payload mockup separated from the third stage of the Angara-A5 carrier rocket 12 minutes after the launch," it said.

The orbital bloc will be put in orbit by the Persei booster under the routine nine-hour scheme, when the booster’s engine is switched on four times.

The Angara-A5 heavy carrier rocket was launched by the Russian space forces from the Plesetsk spaceport at 22:00 Moscow time on Monday.

The Persei booster, a modernized version of a unit originally meant for the Proton-M carrier rocket, was developed by RSC Energia. Chief of Russia’s state space corporation Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin said earlier that the Persei booster would be launched for the first time on the Angara-A5 heavy carrier rocket in 2021.

Angara is a family of Russia’s launch vehicles, with versions ranging from light to heavy. The new family uses environmentally-friendly fuel components. There have been two launches of the Angara heavy rockets from Plesetsk - on December 23, 2014 and December 14, 2020.

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