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A Russian Proton-M rocket carrying two telecommunications satellites blasted off from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan early Saturday, federal space agency Roscosmos said.

The launch was carried out at designated time and successful, a Roscosmos spokesman said.

Nine minutes after the launch, at 01:13 Moscow time (2113 GMT Friday), the Briz-M booster separated from the rocket to send the two satellites into their orbits, Roscosmos said.

The separation of the Yamal-300K satellite from the Briz booster was conducted at 10:19 Moscow time (0619 GMT), while the separation of the Luch 5B satellite was performed at 10:33 Moscow time (0633 GMT), according to Roscosmos.

Both Yamal and Luch were built by Reshetnev space company. The Yamal-300K telesat will joint the network of Russian energy giant Gazprom's telecoms branch Gazprom Space Systems (GSS). It covers a service zone of 95 percent of Russia's territory.

Luch 5B was expected to relay data from space vehicles and track orbits of various space objects, according to its designer.

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