Watch live: Soyuz rocket set to launch from Vostochny Cosmodrome

A Soyuz launcher lifts off from the Vostochny Cosmodrome with four satellites at 3:57 p.m. EDT (1957 GMT) Saturday. Credit: Roscosmos TV

A Russian Soyuz rocket launched from the Vostochny Cosmodrome at 3:57 p.m. EDT (1957 GMT) Saturday with three Gonets data relay payloads and a demonstrator spacecraft for a proposed constellation of Russian broadband internet satellites.

The three-stage rocket, topped by a Fregat upper stage, will take off from Vostochny, Russia’s newest spaceport near the country’s border with China in the far eastern Amur Oblast. The Soyuz will head north from the remote spaceport to target a near-polar orbit, using its Fregat upper stage to place the three Gonets data relay satellites into an orbit about 932 miles (1,500 kilometers) above Earth.

Then the Fregat upper stage will fire its main engine multiple times to inject Russia’s Skif-D tech demo satellite into a much higher orbit about 5,014 miles (8,070 kilometers) above Earth. The entire launch sequence will take several hours from liftoff until separation of the final satellite.

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