The Kosmos satellite was launched at 1220 GMT and reached orbit an hour later, despite severe weather conditions that saw temperatures drop to minus 20 degrees Celsius (minus four degrees Fahrenheit), Russia space agency sources told Interfax news agency.

Meanwhile, Nikolai Moisseyev, deputy director of the Russian Space Agency, said that dim prospects and a meager budget for Russia's once-flourishing space program would not hamper its commitment to the ISS in 2003.

"Next year's launch program for ISS will be as active as this year's: five systems will be sent to the station, including two Soyuz piloted vessels and three Progress cargo craft, which will allow Russia to fulfill its commitments," he said during a round table broadcast on Radio-1.

Earlier in December, Russia's space chief Yuri Koptev had publicly warned that Moscow's ever-shrinking space budget could reduce Russian cosmonauts to the status of mere delivery boys for the ISS.

"Our NASA colleagues are terrified when their budget shrinks to 15 billion dollars a year. But Russia's space budget totals only 309 million," Koptev lamented on public radio.

Due to lack of funding, construction of the Russian component on the ISS has been effectively frozen as its space industry, the country's pride and joy under the Soviet Union, had not received its due funding since 1989.

RKK Energuia, a Russian company taking part in the building of the ISS, asked the US space agency NASA last September to temporarily halt use of the station due to concerns over Russia's funding problems.

SPACE.WIRE