Second Russian Military Satellite Launched

A Soyuz-2.1B carrier rocket orbited a military satellite on Friday, Russian A&D spokesperson said.

"The spacecraft separated from the third stage of the rocket as scheduled," Col. Dmitry Zenin said.

According to reports, the military satellite is the second in the new Persona series of electro-optical reconnaissance satellites based on the Resurs DK remote sensing satellite.

The first Persona satellite (Kosmos 2441) was launched onto a sun synchronous orbit in July 2008 but reportedly malfunctioned in February 2009 due to a failure in electronic components.

Russia operates a network of about 60-70 military reconnaissance satellites, featuring updated imaging technology and an extended lifetime of up to seven years, reports said.