Russia returns Soyuz rocket to flight with Lotos-S1 mission

Russia’s Soyuz rocket has returned to flight with the successful launch of a Lotos reconnaissance satellite Thursday, two weeks after its failed launch of the Soyuz MS-10 mission. Soyuz lifted off from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome at 03:15 Moscow Time (00:15 UTC) on Thursday, deploying its payload into orbit about ten minutes later. Thursday’s launch has deployed Lotos-S1 No.804, the fourth satellite in the Russian military’s Liana signals intelligence (SIGINT) programme. Liana consists of two families of satellite – Lotos and Pion – however, all of the satellites launched to date have been part of the Lotos series. More

(Source: NASASpaceFlight.com - Oct 26)