Russia successfully launched a military satellite on Sunday from the Baikonur cosmodrome, part of a drive to modernise the armed forces’ space infrastructure, Russian news agencies reported. The Kosmos satellite was launched aboard a Proton-M rocket and was successfully released into the correct orbit, ITAR-TASS quoted a spokesman for the military’s space division, Alexei Zolotukhin, as saying.”We have established stable communications with the satellite. The Kosmos 2434 satellite is functioning normally,” he said. Russia’s military has just over 60 orbiting satellites, which “encompass all kinds of military functions from communications to reconnaissance,” ITAR-TASS quoted the head of the space division, General Vladimir Popovkin, as saying earlier. The latest generation military satellites have a minimum lifespan of between seven and 15 years depending on their orbit, he said.
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