Russia launches rocket with military satellite, UN looks to block space arms race

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Russia launched a Soyuz rocket carrying a military satellite into space Wednesday, according to reports, as the U.N. looks to prevent a spaced-based arms race. 

A Soyuz-2.1b medium-class launch vehicle was apparently launched shortly before 3 a.m. EST from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, Reuters reported, quoting the Russian defense ministry. 

Fox News could not independently verify the launch of the rocket, whose mission was not made clear and comes as tensions between Moscow and Washington have mounted over space-based operations.

A Soyuz rocket blasts off from the launch pad at Russia's space facility in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, Wednesday, Nov. 24, 2021. (Roscosmos Space Agency Press Service photo via AP)

SPACE X LAUNCHES 2 RECONNAISSANCE SATELLITES WITH CLASSIFIED SPACE FORCE MISSION

In coordination with the U.S. Space Force, Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched a rocket carrying two military satellites and several smaller satellites Tuesday in a classified mission.

Concerns over an arms race in space involving Moscow and Washington first began in the 1950s in the lead-up to the height of the Cold War.

The fall of the Soviet Union ushered in a period of international space cooperation when Russia was invited to join the International Space Station in December 1993.

But the 30-year collaborative was brought under renewed strain earlier this year when Moscow said in July it would opt out of the International Space Station project after 2024.

By August, Russia’s space agency Roscosmos revealed plans to develop its own space station in a move that renewed concern over the threat of a new space race. 

A Russian Soyuz rocket lifts off to carry an Iranian Khayyam satellite into orbit, near Baikonur, Kazakhstan, on Aug. 9, 2022.

RUSSIA THREATENS TO TARGET WESTERN COMMERCIAL SATELLITES LIKE ELON MUSK'S STARLINK

Russia last week called on the U.N. to renew legally binding international commitments to "govern outer space" and to keep it an arena "of exclusively peaceful activities on an equal basis."

But in the same breath Russia’s delegate Konstantin Vorontsov warned that Moscow may begin to target Western civilian satellites over their involvement in the war in Ukraine.

 Vorontsov did not specifically mention SpaceX – which has donated over 20,000 satellites to Ukraine and proved vital in Kyiv’s ability to communicate on the front lines – but said the U.S. was setting an "extremely dangerous trend."

"The use by the United States and its allies of civilian, including commercial, infrastructure elements in outer space for military purposes constitute indirect participation [in the war]," he added. 

Ukraine does not have its own satellite fleet and Russia routinely deploys satellites into orbit, including last month when three Gonets-M satellites were launched "to transmit data and provide mobile satellite communications services to mobile and stationary subscribers anywhere in the world," Roscosmos said in a Telegram post, reported Space.com.

Cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Oleg Novitskiy and NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei during a training session ahead of their expedition to the International Space Station, in Star City, Russia, March 20, 2021.  (Andrey Shelepin/GCTC/Russian space agency Roscosmos/Handout via REUTERS)

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A U.N. committee on Monday approved two draft resolutions on "international cooperation in the peaceful uses of outer space," which included commitments to work toward averting an arms race in space.

But the U.S., U.K. Canada and the EU representative took issue with any U.N.-sanctioned move that acknowledges Russia’s move to build out its own space station, describing it as "inappropriate."