MOSCOW, April 10. /TASS/. The repeated postponement of the start of the Angara-A5 heavy-lift space launch vehicle is part of normal testing work, cosmonautics historian Alexander Zheleznyakov told TASS.
The launch of the Angara-A5 rocket was again postponed for 24 hours on April 10. It was initially scheduled for April 9. "There is no need to escalate in this situation; it is an ordinary one. Furthermore, this is a trial launch. The history of national cosmonautics contains the like examples. It is enough to recall the year of 2016, when the launch of the Soyuz-2.1a rocket at the Vostochny cosmodrome was postponed in presence of Russian President Vladimir Putin. So this is normal testing work, there is no harm done," Zheleznyakov said.
More than 2,500 launches were made in years of national cosmonautics evolvement, the expert noted. "If we take the entire history of the space era, and we thankfully had more than 2,500 launches of carrier rockets, such cases occurred many times. For example, simply, there was no such direct streaming of launches in Soviet time and therefore nobody gathered statistics. Nevertheless I can say such cases took place. This launch is the first launch from the Vostochny [cosmodrome] and that’s why it is in the focus," Zheleznyakov added.