World
Russia’s Angara A5 rocket blasts off into space after two aborted launches
Russia wants to use rocket’s cargo capacities to deliver modules for a future rival to the International Space Station.
Russia has launched its Angara A5 rocket from a space facility in the country’s far east after technical glitches prompted officials to abort missions at the last minute for two days in a row.
Thursday’s launch of the new space vehicle is intended to showcase Russia’s post-Soviet space ambitions, and the growing role played by the Vostochny Cosmodrome, which is located in the forests of the Amur region bordering China.
Launch attempts on Tuesday and Wednesday were cancelled due to a failure in a pressurising system in an oxidiser tank and in the engine control system, according to Russian space agency Roscosmos.
Minutes after takeoff, the rocket was travelling at more than 25,000 kilometres per hour and entered orbit.
“With this launch, flight design tests of the Amur space rocket complex with Angara heavy-class launch vehicles on Vostochny began,” Roscosmos announced on social media.
“The rocket worked according to plan. The upper stage separated … and is currently putting the test payload into target orbit.”
ISS rival eyed
Russia began the Angara project a few years after the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union as a Russian-made launch vehicle that would ensure access to space even without the Baikonur Cosmodrome which it rents from Kazakhstan.
The development of the Angara A5, a heavy booster rocket designed to ferry tonnes of equipment into space, has been beset by delays.
The first Angara A5 test flight took place in 2014, and another followed in 2020, both from the Plesetsk space facility in Arkhangelsk, 800km (497 miles) north of Moscow.
The Angara A5 is said to be much more environmentally friendly compared with Proton M, Russia’s heavy-lift rocket that has been in operation since the mid-1960s.
Moscow plans to use the rocket’s cargo capacities to deliver modules for a rival to the International Space Station (ISS) that it hopes to construct in the coming years.
Russia’s space programme has been hit by a number of high-profile setbacks in recent years.
Last month, its launch of a Soyuz spacecraft to the ISS was also delayed for two days. Three astronauts – from Russia, Belarus and the United States – were strapped in and ready for takeoff when a “voltage dip” triggered an automatic shutdown seconds before blastoff.
Russia’s first mission to the moon in almost 50 years failed last year when a lander crashed into the lunar surface.
World
Hamas delegation due in Cairo on Monday for Gaza ceasefire talks
World
Ukraine's Zelenskyy urges faster US weapon deliveries
- President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday that U.S. weapons have begun to arrive in Ukraine.
- Zelenskyy voiced the urgency of accelerating the process due to advancing Russian forces attempting to exploit the situation.
- He also mentioned the lack of significant positive developments in timely support for the Ukrainian army.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday that vital U.S. weapons were starting to arrive in Ukraine in small amounts.
He said that the process needed to move faster.
This is the result of advancing Russian forces trying to take advantage.
REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK: UKRAINE’S ZELENSKYY OPENS UP ON US AID, ISRAEL, TRUMP
Zelenskyy spoke during a joint news conference in Kyiv alongside visiting NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg.
During the conference, he said the situation on the battlefield directly depended on the speed of ammunition supplies to Ukraine.
“Timely support for our army. Today I don’t see anything positive on this point yet. There are supplies, they have slightly begun, this process needs to be sped up,” he said.
World
Nine on trial in Germany over alleged far-right coup plot
Nine people charged with terrorism in connection with an alleged far-right plot to topple the German government went on trial on Monday in one of three linked cases.
The trial – which opened on Monday in Stuttgart – is the first to open in relation to the purported conspiracy, which came to light in late 2022. It is focused on those defendants of the Reich Citizens group who allegedly were part of its so-called military arm, German news agency dpa reported.
Federal prosecutors in December filed terrorism charges against a total of 27 people, one of whom has since died.
Nine other suspects, among them a self-styled prince and a former far-right lawmaker, will go on trial on 21 May at a Frankfurt state court in the most prominent of the three cases. The other eight will go on trial in Munich on 18 June.
On trial in the Frankfurt case includes Heinrich XIII Prince Reuss, whom the group allegedly planned to install as Germany’s provisional new leader; Birgit Malsack-Winkemann, a judge and former lawmaker with the far-right Alternative for Germany party; and a retired paratrooper.
The proceedings of the three cases are expected to last well into 2025.
German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said on public broadcaster ZDF that the trial “shows the strength of our rule of law that the largest terrorist network of Reich Citizens to date… has to answer for its militant plans to overthrow the government.”
Prosecutors have said that the accused believed in a “conglomerate of conspiracy myths,” including Reich Citizens and QAnon ideology, and were convinced that Germany is ruled by a so-called deep state.
Adherents of the Reich Citizens movement, or Reichsbuergerbewegung in German, reject Germany’s postwar constitution and have called for bringing down the government, while QAnon is a global conspiracy theory with roots in the US.
According to prosecutors, the group planned to storm into the parliament building in Berlin and arrest lawmakers. It allegedly intended to negotiate a post-coup order primarily with Russia, as one of the allied victors of World War II.
The nine defendants at the Stuttgart trial are accused of membership in a terrorist organisation and “preparation of a high treasonous enterprise.” One of the defendants is also on trial for attempted murder, dpa reported.
Most of the nine suspects in the Frankfurt trial are also charged with membership in a terrorist organisation and “preparation of high treasonous undertaking.” The other eight alleged members of the group have been charged in separate indictments at the court in Munich.
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