Russia sends military satellite into orbit

MOSCOW, May 22 (Xinhua) -- Russia sent a military satellite into orbit from a space center in northwest Russia early Friday, an aide to the Russian Space Forces commander confirmed.

A Soyuz-2 carrier rocket, with a Meridian military satellite atop, blasted off from the Plesetsk cosmodrome and put the satellite into the near-Earth orbit, said Col. Alexei Zolotukhin.

"A steady communication link has been established with the spacecraft. All on-board systems are performing normally," Zolotukhin was quoted as saying by the RIA Novosti news agency.

Apart from military uses, the Meridian-series satellites will also provide communications, navigation and surveillance services for civilian customers.

The Soyuz-2 is an upgraded version of the Soyuz rocket, which has been a workhorse of Russia's manned and unmanned space programs since the 1960s.