(Reuters) – Russia launched its Soyuz-2.1b rocket carrying the GLONASS-K navigation system on Monday from a northern cosmodrome, the Interfax news agency reported, citing the defence ministry.
“Combat crews of the Space Forces …. successfully launched a Soyuz-2.1b medium-class launch vehicle with space navigation GLONASS-K system,” the agency cited the ministry as saying.
The GLONASS-K satellite lifted off on the Soyuz rocket at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, about 800 km (500 miles) north of Moscow.
GLONASS-K is a navigation satellite intended as a part of the Russian GLONASS radio-based satellite navigation system. Russia has spent billions of dollars in the past two decades on developing the GLONASS system seen as a potential rival to the U.S. global positioning system (GPS).
(Reporting in Melbourne by Lidia Kelly; Editing by Robert Birsel)
