Russia delays satellites' launch due to technical reasons

Russia postponed the launch of a Proton-M rocket carrying three Glonass-M communication satellites Thursday due to technical reasons, the country's space agency Roscosmos said. Roscosmos said a malfunction of the switching network was detected during a check of the launch system, delaying the launch until Friday. This will be the 370th launch of Proton rocket and the first after a failed launch of the same rocket on Dec. 5, 2010, when three Glonass-M satellites fell into the Pacific Ocean. Investigations determined that the last failure was caused by fuel over-filling. Glonass, the Russian equivalent of the U.S. Global Position System, is designed for both military and civilian use. The system requires 24 operational and two or three reserve satellites in orbit to ensure global coverage.