Russia launches six satellites with Soyuz rocket

MOSCOW - A Russian Soyuz-2.1a rocket carrying six satellites blasted off on Wednesday from Pad 31 of the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan, the Russian space agency Roscosmos said.

The launch was originally scheduled for Tuesday, but postponed due to bad weather. The rocket lifted off at 8:04 p.m. Moscow time (1604 GMT), tasked with sending six Globalstar telecommunication satellites into an orbit some 900 km from the Earth.

The satellites, expected to enter the orbit in about 1.5 hours, were placed atop of a Fregat booster, which was the third stage of the rocket.

The satellites were developed by a European company, Thales Alenia Space, on orders of the Globalstar corporation, and designed to provide high-quality global personal mobile communication services.

Each satellite has a weight of 700 kg and a service life of 15 years.