Russia launched the Soyuz-5 expendable two-stage rocket for the first time on the evening of April 30, lifting off from a pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, Roscosmos said.
Video of the launch appeared on the state corporation’s Telegram channel.
Both stages performed nominally, Roscosmos said, and a “test payload had been placed on the calculated suborbital trajectory.” The payload will subsequently fall into the Pacific Ocean in an area closed to shipping and aviation.
The Progress Rocket Space Center in Samara announced in 2015 that it planned to include construction of the Soyuz-5 launch vehicle in the federal space program through 2025. Work moved into an active phase in 2016.
Rocket and Space Corporation Energia, the rocket’s lead developer, announced in 2017 that the first launch was planned for 2022. It was subsequently postponed multiple times.
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