RUSSIA LAUNCHED its first modified SS-19 military missile satellite mission from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on 26 December 1994. It carried a small amateur radio satellite, the Radio Rosto/RS 15, into a 2,165 x 1,900km orbit.
The missile, called the Rokot, has an added third stage. It is built by the Khrunichev and Salyut design bureaux and is being marketed with Germany's Daimler-Benz Aerospace. The type was tested on a sub-orbital flight from Baikonur in December 1991.
Source: Flight International