"The first test launch of the light-class Angara-1.2PP space rocket was conducted by the Air and Space Defence Forces," Russia's Defence Ministry said in a statement, cited by Russian news agencies.

The rocket blasted off at 1600 Moscow time (1200 GMT), it said, on a planned roughly 20 minute suborbital short flight across Russia's Arctic coast line.

More than two decades in the works, the new generation Angara rockets are a key to President Vladimir Putin's effort to reform a once-pioneering space industry hobbled after years of budget cuts and a brain drain in the 1990s. [ID:nL6N0P82U4]