A Briz-KM acceleration unit with Europe’s Sentinel-5P satellite separated at 12:32 Moscow time from Russia’s Rokot carrier rocket, which blasted off from the Plesetsk spaceport on Friday.

The satellite’s separation was shown during a live broadcast in the office of the European Space Agency (ESA) in Moscow.

The Briz-KM acceleration unit will continue delivering the satellite into the designated orbit. The satellite is expected to separate from the acceleration unit and reach the target orbit at 13:45 Moscow time.

Russia’s Defense Ministry announced earlier on Friday that a Rokot carrier rocket with a European satellite had blasted off from the Plesetsk space center in north Russia at 12:28 Moscow time.

A few minutes later, the Defense Ministry confirmed that the Briz-KM acceleration unit with the European Sentinel-5P Earth’s remote sensing satellite had separated from the Rokot carrier.

"The front part of the Rokot rocket comprising the Briz-KM acceleration unit and the Sentinel-5P satellite separated in the normal regime at the designated time [12:33 Moscow time] from the Rokot carrier rocket," the Defense Ministry said.

It will take about an hour and a half for the Briz-KM acceleration unit to deliver the satellite into the designated orbit.

The Rokot carrier rocket was launched at 12:28 Moscow time on October 13 by a combat team of the Space Troops of Russia’s Aerospace Force from the Plesetsk state testing cosmodrome in Plesetsk in the Arkhangelsk Region.