Soyuz Carrier Rocket to Blast Off in South America Monday Evening

Russian Soyuz ST-A carrier rocket launch from the European spaceport in Kourou is suspended until Monday evening, the launch service provider Arianespace said in a statement.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The launch of a Russian Soyuz ST-A carrier rocket from the European spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, to put an EU satellite into orbit, originally planned for April 21, is expected to take place on Monday evening, the launch service provider Arianespace said in a statement.

"Replacement operations are underway for the inertial unit of Soyuz Flight VS14 that was affected by an outage… Liftoff of the Soyuz launcher is now targeted for Monday, April 25, 2016, at the precise moment of 06:02:13 p.m., (Local time in French Guiana) [21:02 GMT]," the statement published on Sunday reads.

The launch of the Soyuz ST-A, carrying the Sentinel-1B satellite, was halted due to an anomaly that happened during the countdown. It had already been postponed twice before due to weather conditions.

Sentinel-1 is the European Space Agency's new European Radar Observatory, which is the first new space component of the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security satellite family developed by the European Space Agency (ESA) and paid for by the European Commission.