Russian Proton-M lifts Garpun military satellite to orbit

A Russian Proton-M rocket has successfully launched the Garpun 12L (meaning “harpoon” in Russian) military communications satellite into orbit on Saturday, Dec. 12, at 7:19 p.m. EST (00:19 GMT on Sunday, Dec. 13). Liftoff of the rocket took place from Site 81/24 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The launch of this mission was initially scheduled for Dec. 10, but it was postponed after the loss of the Kanopus-ST satellite on Dec. 5 when it failed to separate from the Soyuz-2.1v booster. Additional checks of the spacecraft separation system were performed to make sure that the failure won’t happen again. Due to the military nature of the Garpun mission, very little information was released regarding preparations for the launch. The mission also wasn’t broadcasted live. More

(Source: SpaceFlight Insider - Dec 15)