Russia on Tuesday night sent six U. S. communications satellites into space, said the Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos).

An upgraded Soyuz-2.1a carrier rocket with the Fregat upper stage blasted off from the Kazakh Baikonur space center at around 9:11 p.m. Moscow time (1711 GMT), carrying six Globalstar-2 satellites.

The launch was conducted in normal mode, said Alexei Zolotukhin, spokesman for Russia's Space Forces.

At around 10:49 p.m. Moscow time (1849 GMT), two out of the six satellites will be first separated from the rocket, to be followed by the other four some two minutes later.

The six satellites will join the orbital Globalstar system developed by the California-based U.S. company Globalstar, which provides worldwide, high-quality communication services, such as wireless telephone services.

This was the first time for Russia to use Soyuz-2 upgraded carrier rocket to orbit Globalstar satellites.

Previously Russian Soyuz-FG rockets have been used for the same purpose, each of them carrying four satellites, local media reported.?