Moscow: Russia launched eight foreign satellites into orbit today (Jun 29, 2004) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the Space Forces press office said.

The satellites took off on a Russian-Ukrainian Dnepr rocket, a decommissioned ballistic missile converted for space launches, at 11:30 hours IST and were in orbit within about 15 minutes.

They include a French research satellite intended to measure electrical and magnetic currents in the high layers of the atmosphere and study volcanoes and other seismic phenomena on Earth, as well as Saudi and US communications satellites and an Italian scientific orbiter.