Russia's space sector has seen a series of misfires lately including the Progress spacecraft, which failed shortly after launch on April 28 and fell back to Earth
A Russian Soyuz booster rocket has successfully launched a satellite for the first time since a much-publicized failure in April.
The Defense Ministry said the Soyuz 2.1A rocket was launched Friday from the Plesetsk launch pad in northern Russia, placing a Russian military satellite into a designated orbit.
The failure of the previous Soyuz launch on April 28 led to the loss of an unmanned Progress cargo ship bound for the International Space Station. The same type of rocket is used to launch spacecraft carrying crews to the space outpost, and its failure prompted Russia to delay both the scheduled landing of some of the station's crew and their successors' launch.
The next Progress launch is set for early July, to be followed by a crew launch later that month.
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