MOSCOW, March 22, 2021 (BSS/AFP) – A Russian Soyuz rocket blasted off from
the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Monday carrying 38 foreign
satellites after takeoff was twice postponed due to technical issues, Russian
space agency Roscosmos said.
Video published by Roscosmos showed the Soyuz blaster launching against
grey and cloudy skies at 0607 GMT.
“The Soyuz-2.1a carrier rocket with the Fregat upper stage and 38
spacecraft from 18 countries took off from the Baikonur cosmodrome,”
Roscosmos said on its Twitter account.
The rocket will place in orbit 38 satellites from more than a dozen
countries, including South Korea, Japan, Canada, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Italy
and Brazil.
Among them is the Challenge-1, the first satellite made completely in
Tunisia, which was created by the Telnet telecommunications group.
The launch was twice postponed from Saturday after a surge in voltage was
detected.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the Russian space sector has lagged
behind international competitors, plagued by corruption scandals and
technological stagnation.
In 2018, a Soyuz rocket carrying a Russian cosmonaut and a NASA astronaut
failed mid-flight, forcing the crew to carry out an emergency landing. Both
survived without injuries.