Posted: Sat, Sep 25, 2004, 9:02 AM ET (1302 GMT)
A Soyuz rocket launched a Russian military satellite Friday evening, the second military launch in as many days. The Soyuz-U rocket lifted off from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia at 12:50 pm EDT (1650 GMT, 8:50 pm Moscow time) and placed its payload in an unspecified orbit nine minutes later, according to the Interfax news agency. The spacecraft, likely named Kosmos 2410, was identified only as a military payload. Soyuz military launches from Plesetsk in recent years have usually carried optical reconnaissance satellites. The launch is the second in as many days from Plesetsk: on Thursday a Kosmos-3M booster carried two Strela store-and-forward communications satellites into low Earth orbit.

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•  Interfax article