The light Kosmos-3M rocket blasted off from the Plessetsk military cosmodrome in northwestern Russia, carrying an Algerian and a Russian satellite, the Russian space agency told AFP.

The Algerian ALSat-1 satellite is set to monitor the environment by observing natural disasters and industrial accidents, it said.

The Russian Mozhayets satellite will be used as a learning tool by students of Russia's military space academy Mozhaysky, it said.

The two satellites weigh 90 kilograms (200 pounds) each and are orbiting at a height of 700 kilometers (435 miles) above the Earth.

The successful launch came just two days after an Astra 1K telecommunications satellite failed to reach its orbit 36,000 kilometers above the Earth after blasting into space from Kazakhstan aboard a Russian-made Proton rocket.

SPACE.WIRE