MOSCOW (AP) — Russia launched the world’s first satellite into space Tuesday using a missile fired from a submarine.
The German Tubsat-N satellite was put into orbit by a RSM-54 intercontinental ballistic missile fired by a Novomoskovsk submarine in the Barents Sea, Russian news reports said, quoting navy officials.
Russian officials said it was the navy’s first commercial space launch. But U.S. space analysts said it was the first time any nation had launched a satellite into orbit from a submarine.
The launch was made while the submarine was submerged, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported, and TV footage showed the rocket firing out of the ocean and into the sky.
The 22-pound satellite, developed by the Berlin Technical University, will provide communication services and also help count animals and relay other ecological information, the reports said.
The RSM-54 missile is a standard weapon of Russian nuclear-powered submarines.