Russia successfully launched an Egyptian telecommunications satellite on Thursday, the Russian space agency Roskosmos announced.

A Soyuz rocket took off with the Egyptsat-A satellite at 1647 GMT from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan,

The satellite will take high-definition images of the Earth's surface, Roskosmos said in a statement.

"The satellite has been placed in orbit, all is working well," space agency spokesman Vladimir Ostimenko said, according to the Russian RIA Novosti news agency.

In October a Soyuz rocket carrying a Russian and US astronaut failed just minutes after blast-off, forcing the pair to make an emergency landing.

A successful manned flight was launched in December, taking Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, Anne McClain of NASA and David Saint-Jacques of the Canadian Space Agency off for a six-and-a-half month mission on the International Space Station.

© 2019 AFP