Russia's newest heavy rocket carrier Angara-A5 will orbit a commercial satellite for the first time in 2016, the head of the Khrunichev Center said Wednesday.

"[The launch will be in] 2016, everything depends on the space apparatus. I think that this will be a commercial launch, but I don't know if it will be a foreign or Russian apparatus," Andrei Kalinovsky told journalists.

The Angara family of space launch vehicles has been in development since 1995. According to Roscosmos, new Angara rockets will give Russia independent access to space and opportunity to reach a new level in technological development.

The heavy-class Angara-5 rocket, part of the Angara family of rockets designed to replace the Proton used previously to put space vehicles into a low Earth orbit, was first successfully launched in December 2014.

The family's super-heavy version that Roscosmos' Komarov announced would be launched within the next decade expects to have a much higher payload and would require a separate launch pad.

Decision to Launch Next Proton Carrier Rocket to Be Made in June
Moscow (Sputnik) Jun 04 - On May 16, a Proton-M carrier rocket was to deliver the Mexican MexSat-1 satellite into orbit, but shortly after launching, the rocket lost its telemetry with Earth and later burned up in the atmosphere upon reentry.

"The localization of the defects of the Proton is currently underway. We will decide on the date [of the next] launch in June and inform Roscosmos," Andrei Kalinovsky told journalists.

Source: Sputnik News