A Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket with a Glonass-K navigation satellite blasted off from the Plesetsk spaceport, the Russian Defense Ministry told reporters on Monday.

"At 05:52 Moscow time on Monday, a combat team of the Aerospace Forces’ Space Troops successfully launched a Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket with a Glonass-K navigation satellite from the Russian Defense Ministry’s State Testing Cosmodrome (the Plesetsk spaceport)," the country’s top brass reported.

All the pre-launch preparations and the rocket’s launch proceeded normally. The launch and the rocket’s flight were controlled by the ground-based facilities of the Russian orbital cluster’s automated control system, the ministry said.

The Glonass-K is a third-generation satellite of the Russian global navigation satellite system (Glonass). The satellite was engineered and manufactured by the Reshetnev Information Satellite Systems Company (part of Russia’s State Space Corporation Roscosmos). The satellite was developed to replace the Glonass-M family of space vehicles.