Russia Postpones Launch Of Angara Space Rocket Minutes Before Launch
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[QUOTE]MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia postponed the planned debut launch of the Angara rocket, its first new design of space vehicle since the Soviet era, just minutes before it was due to blast off on Friday.
The test flight was aborted due to technical issues, Russian officials said.
More than two decades in the making, the Angara-1.2PP’s maiden flight will test Russia’s ability to turn around a once-pioneering space industry that is struggling to recover from a brain drain and years of budget curbs.
Work on the Angara began after the break-up of the Soviet Union when Moscow lost the maker of its Zenit and Dnepr rockets as well as the Baikonur launch site, based respectively in the newly independent republics of Ukraine and Kazakhstan.
“This is the first launch vehicle that has been developed and built from scratch in Russia,” Igor Lissov, an expert with trade journal Novosti Kosmonovatiki. “Everything else we have is a modernization of our Soviet legacy.”
While Russia continues to use Baikonur under a lease deal with the Kazakh government, Angara will blast off from within its borders at the northern Plesetsk military cosmodrome. It is due to follow a suborbital flight path across Russia’s Arctic coastline.
For some industry insiders, the crisis in Moscow’s relations with Kiev over its annexation of Crimea and a separatist rebellion in the eastern Ukraine proves Russia’s need to produce and launch its rockets domestically.[/QUOTE]
[url]http://www.businessinsider.com.au/r-russia-to-debut-first-new-space-rocket-design-since-soviet-era-2014-26[/url]
god dam it the one thing they where doing right.
Glad to see NASA's not the only ones who take decades to make a new rocket. Aborting a launch isn't exactly uncommon though.
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