Russian President Vladimir Putin praised the country's space companies for dominating the launch market on Wednesday, however, noted that something must be done about a rising rate of failures.

The first space launch from the newly-built Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia's Far East of a Soyuz-2.1a rocket carrying three satellites scheduled on Wednesday was postponed due to calculation errors rather than the condition of the spaceport itself, according to the Russian president.

"Today's malfunction, as far as I understand, is not due to the condition of the cosmodrome, but to the calculations system itself," Putin said.

"I want to hear how the post-launch analysis is being carried out. Without any doubt, conclusions will have to be made," he added.

The president noted that Russia's space companies still lead in terms of the number of successful launches, however, the percent of failures is rising dangerously high.

"Of course, we remain in the lead despite all shortfalls, Russia is still leading in terms of the number of [successful] launches <...> which is good, but the number of failures we've seen lately is a bad thing. There should be an urgent professional response," Putin said at a federal panel meeting.

On Tuesday, Russia successfully put an EU satellite into orbit atop a Soyuz ST-A carrier rocket that lifted off from the European spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. The launch was postponed three times since last Friday, the last time due to an anomaly that was observed during the countdown.

Source: Sputnik News