Russia plans to delay launches of military spacecraft this year because of a failed satellite launch on August.

      Russian Space Forces Commander Lt. Gen. Oleg Ostapenko says the delay is going to be "insignificant". He added the launches would be put on hold until the findings of a government probe into the incident are fully looked into, as the Briz-M upper stages are also used to hoist military spacecraft into orbit.

      On August 7, two telecommunication satellites were lost due to a failure of the Proton-M rocket's upper stage.

      Several space industry officials were dismissed over failure, the most influential of them is Vladimir Nesterov - general director of the Khrunichev Space Center, which designed and manufactured the Proton-M rocket. 

      Russian space agency Roscosmos suspended all Proton-M launches until the inquiry group states its findings.