Russia launched its third successful demonstration flight of the Angara A5 rocket on Monday, however, its Persei upper stage suffered a failure, NASA Spaceflight reported. This was the final launch needed to enter operational status, although further tests might be needed prior to operations.

According to State Space Corporation Roscosmos anouncements on Thursday 11 April 2024, followed by Agence TASS reports, an Angara-A5 heavy-lift rocket with an Orion booster launched from the Vostochny spaceport in Russia’s Far East on its third attempt.In about 12 minutes, the Orion booster separated from the Angara upper stage and proceeded to a double orbital insertion: first a cube sat in lower orbit, then a test-payload delivered into the targetted geostationary orbit as part of the rocket’s flight development tests.

Russia launches second Angara-A5 heavy rocket test

According to Alexander Medvedev, deputy general director of the TsNIIMash rocket and spacecraft scientific center, the inaugural launch of the Angara-A5M rocket from the Vostochny Cosmodrome is planned for 2025.

Persei, the upper stage of the failed Angara-A5 launch on 27th December, harmlessly reentered over the South Pacific Ocean on Wednesday, the U.S. Space Force reported. Roscosmos did not provide any details on Persei and its 2400-kg payload after the launch nor did they acknowledge its malfunction.

Russia’s Angara-A5 heavy carrier rocket was recently delivered to the Plesetsk space center in northwestern Russia for pre-launch preparations, a rocket and space industry source told TASS.

The Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center has signed contracts for the production of 12 Angara-A5 heavy-lift launch vehicles.

According to Alexander Medvedev, the chief designer of launch vehicles, deputy general director of the TsNIIMash rocket and spacecraft scientific center, and one of the ideologists of the Angara rocket, the Angara-A5B heavy-lift launch vehicle can be modified to be reusable, with landings performed using landing legs similar to those of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket’s reusable first stage.

The Polyot Production Association in the city of Omsk will begin mass production of Angara launch vehicles in 2022-2023

Dmitry Rogozin has announced the deployment of the Sfera (‘Sphere’) satellite system in 2022 using the Angara A5 heavy-lift launch vehicle.