MOSCOW. April 10 (Interfax) - A state commission has attested the readiness of an Angara-A5 heavy rocket for the first launch from the Vostochny Cosmodrome, cancelled on Tuesday, Roscosmos said on Wednesday.
"The state commission has cleared the Angara-A5 rocket for the first launch from the Vostochny Cosmodrome. The launch of the Angara-A5 rocket with the Orion upper stage and a trial payload from Area 1A is scheduled for 12 p.m. on April 10," Roscosmos said.
The first Angara-A5 launch from Vostochny was initially planned for 12 p.m. on April 9. The rocket was supposed to bring the Orion upper stage and the trial payload to orbit.
The mission was aborted two minutes before the launch. "The launch has been cancelled. Work supervisors prepare for 24-hour standstill," the Roscosmos stream announcer said.
Roscosmos head Yury Borisov said that the Angara-A5 launch from Vostochny was cancelled by the automatic system two minutes before the launch due to a failure of the pressurization system in the central unit's oxidizer tank. He said the launch was moved to the alternate date, April 10.
The launch will begin development tests of the Amur space center at Vostochny.
The Russian Defense Ministry is the main consumer of Angara rockets.
This is the fourth launch of the Angara-A5 heavy rocket. The previous three launches were performed from Plesetsk Cosmodrome. The first trial launch of the Angara-A5 was carried out on December 23, 2014, followed by the second launch on December 14, 2020, and the third launch on December 27, 2021.
The Angara family is due to replace Proton-M rockets, which have been in operation since the mid-1960s. The upgraded Proton-M has been used for carrying payloads to orbit since 2001.
In particular, Proton rockets transported modules of the International Space Station. Seven launches failed due to human error in 2010-2015.
The Angara is a family of Russian rockets with various lifting capacities based on universal rocket modules and powered by oxygen-kerosene engines. The family ranges from light to heavy, with a lifting capacity from 3.5 tonnes (Angara-1.2) to 38 tonnes (Angara-A5V) brought to low-Earth orbit.