Space Telescope to Study Far Off Worlds Set to Be Launched on Soyuz-ST Rocket - Roscosmos

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The launch of Russia's Soyuz-ST carrier rocket with five European satellites on board from Kourou spaceport in French Guiana was delayed from 17 to 18 December due to a detected control system error, the Russian State Space Corporation Roscosmos said.

"During final procedures prior to the launch of the Soyuz-ST-A carrier rocket with a block of commercial space satellites, a control system error was detected automatically", Roscosmos said in a statement, adding that work to redeem the error was underway.

The European Space Agency's director for science, Gunther Hasinger, said earlier on Tuesday that the launch had been postponed due to a software error in the Fregat upper stage.

Roscosmos confirmed Hasinger's statement that the launch was rescheduled to 08:54 GMT on 18 December.

The Soyuz-ST launch vehicle will carry the Italian CSG-1 Earth observation satellite, the French Eye-Sat satellite and the French industry’s first nanosatellite, ANGELS, into orbit.

The European CHEOPS space telescope, designed to study extrasolar planets, will also be launched on the Soyuz-ST rocket.

According to DLR, Soyuz-ST has three stages running on liquid fuel and an upper stage that can be fired up to six times – a system that enables the rocket to carry out complex missions to different target orbits.

Over 20 Soyuz-ST launches have been carried out from Kourou since 2011. This year, two launches were made so far.