Russia's Next Soyuz-ST Rocket Launch Scheduled For Mid-December - German Aerospace Center

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 16th September, 2019) The next launch of Russia's Soyuz-ST carrier rocket from the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou is planned for mid-December, the German DLR Space Administration says.

"The next flight of a Soyuz[-STB launcher] is scheduled for the following date: 17.12.2019," the German Aerospace Center (DLR) said in a statement released on its website.

Earlier this month, a source in the space industry told Sputnik that the Soyuz launch from the European Space Agency's Kourou spaceport in French Guiana had been scheduled for October or November but was postponed until December because foreign satellites were not ready for the mission yet.

The Soyuz-ST launch vehicle will carry the Italian CSG-1 Earth observation satellite, the French Eye-Sat satellite and the French industry's first nanosatellite, ANGELS, into orbit.

The European CHEOPS space telescope, designed to study extrasolar planets, will also be launched on the Soyuz-ST rocket.

According to DLR, Soyuz-ST has three stages running on liquid fuel and an upper stage that can be fired up to six times - a system that enables the rocket to carry out complex missions to different target orbits.

Over 20 Soyuz-ST launches have been carried out from Kourou since 2011. This year, two launches were made so far.