Russia's Roscosmos launches another rocket with navigation satellite amid war in Ukraine

Russia's space company Roscosmos conducted another rocket launch to loft a communications satellite into orbit on July 7. Citing reports from the Russian Defence Ministry, TASS news agency reported that a Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket lifted off at 2:48 pm IST with a Glonass-K navigation satellite from the Plesetsk spaceport in Russia's Arkhangelsk region. Notably, the latest launch checks off another successful mission amid the war in Ukraine following President Vladimir Putin's order of a 'military invasion' on February 24.

"At 12:18 pm Moscow time on Thursday, July 7, a combat team of the Aerospace Forces’ Space Troops successfully launched a Soyuz-2.1b medium carrier rocket with a Glonass-K navigation satellite from the Russian Defence Ministry’s State Testing Cosmodrome," the Ministry's report read as per TASS. 

Manufactured by Roscosmos-affiliated Reshetnev Information Satellite Systems Company, the third generation satellite was launched to replace the Glonass-M family of satellites in Glonass, Russia's global navigation satellite system. Prior to this, Roscosmos launched military satellites on two separate occasions, both after the invasion of Ukraine. In early May, several reports claimed that the agency even conducted a secret mission to loft satellites for spying on its neighbouring country.

Russian space program unaffected by sanctions?

On the contrary to US President Joe Biden's prediction, Roscosmos is carrying on with its developmental work despite the heavy economic sanctions imposed on it. Earlier in February, Biden had warned that the blockade on the export of new technologies to Russia would cripple its space programs. However, Roscosmos so far has managed to stay afloat and is busy preparing its Progress spacecraft for a trip to the International Space Station (ISS) next month. 

Apart from the satellite missions, Roscosmos also launched a cargo-loaded rocket to the space station in early May from the Baikonur cosmodrome. In addition to this, Roscosmos has also finalised a seat-swap agreement with US space agency NASA for the Crew-5 mission scheduled for September this year. Under this mission, Russian cosmonaut Anna Kikina will board the SpaceX Dragon capsule to fly to the space station and Roscosmos, in turn, will launch a NASA astronaut in its Soyuz spacecraft on a future mission.

Image: Russian Ministry of Defence