MOSCOW, Oct. 4 (Xinhua) -- The Russian Space Forces carried out 16 space launches in 2018, putting into orbit 22 satellites, the Russian Defense Ministry said Friday.
The ministry said in a statement that the Space Forces also last year made a test launch of Topol-M intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and of a RS-24 Yars ICBM.
The Space Forces, a part of the Russian Aerospace Forces, marks its creation anniversary on Oct. 4 since 1957, the date when the first artificial Earth satellite Sputnik 1 was successfully launched.
The main tasks of the Russian Space Forces includes missile attack prewarning, outer space monitoring, spacecraft and ICBM launches as well as operations to ensure a global monitoring of the space situation.
Last year, its experts completed more than 3,000 special operations to control changes in the space situation, during which they discovered and tracked about 700 space objects, controlled the launch of about 300 spacecraft into orbits and issued 19 warnings about dangerous proximity of space objects to spacecraft of the Russian orbital group.
They also monitored more than 30 launches of foreign and domestic ballistic missiles and space rockets in 2018, the defense ministry statement said.
