Article Posted on : - May 27, 2014

The Zenit-3SL rocket. A Sea Luanch photo

MOSCOW (AFP): Russia has sent a French communications satellite into orbit from a floating platform in the Pacific Ocean, after the last launch in 2013 ended with the satellite plunging into the sea.

The Zenit-3SL rocket blasted off at 2209 GMT on Monday and reached its orbit around an hour later, said the Sea Launch international consortium, 95 per cent of which is controlled by Russia.

Boeing of the United States and Norway's Aker ASA indirectly control 5 percent of the company, created in 1995.

Sea Launch has been using the deep-sea platform to perform commercial operations since 1999.

The last launch on February 1, 2013 failed, with the Zenit rocket -- made from parts produced both in Ukraine and Russia -- falling into the sea without managing to put a US Intelsat satellite into orbit.

The last planned launch of a Eutelsat 3B built by Airbus Defence and Space had been postponed from April 16 due to fresh technical problems.

Russia in recent years has experienced a series of embarrassing failures in the space sphere, leading to the loss of numerous satellites and other equipment.

Earlier this month, a Proton rocket carrying a European satellite fell to Earth less than 10 minutes after it was launched at Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

In October last year, the Russian authorities dismissed the head of the space agency, Vladimir Popovkin, who was replaced by Oleg Ostapenko as part of a huge project to reform this highly strategic sector.