Russia’s Angara 5 rocket launched on successful maiden flight Tuesday Dec 23,2014

 

The first Angara 5 rocket blasted off from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome at 0557 GMT (12:57 a.m. EST; 8:57 a.m. local time) Tuesday Dec 23,2014

Tuesday’s test flight comes after a smaller version of the Angara rocket launched in July on the program’s first demonstration mission.

Weighing 773 metric tons (852 tons) when filled with kerosene, liquid oxygen and hypergolic propellants, the Angara 5 is the biggest Russian launcher to debut since the Energia rocket for the Soviet Union’s Buran space shuttle flew in the late 1980s.

A new Russian rocket designed as a successor to the workhorse Proton booster lifted off Tuesday on a maiden test flight that could signify Russia’s shift away from launching satellites at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The 180-foot-tall Angara 5 rocket ignited five kerosene-fueled RD-191 booster engines and lifted off from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome — a military-run spaceport 500 miles north of Moscow — at 0557 GMT (12:57 a.m. EST) Tuesday, according to the Russian Federal Space Agency.

The Russian Ministry of Defence confirmed the Angara booster worked as expected before deploying the Breeze M stage 12 minutes after liftoff.

Russian President Vladimir Putin watched the launch via video conference

Russian plan a series of Angara test flights before the rocket family is operational by 2020. The Angara rocket family comes in several models to lift light, medium-class and heavy satellites into space