The Russian space program has spent more than two decades developing the Angara family of rockets, and government officials have expressed high hopes for the Angara A5 heavy lift variant. It is hoped that the Angara A5 rocket can replace the venerable Proton booster, which is more than half a century old and in recent years has had reliability issues.

But the long-running development program has been slow. The Angara A5 finally made its debut in 2014, successfully lofting a 2-ton mass simulator into geosynchronous orbit. But then, six years passed before a second development flight in December 2020. This flight was again successful, with the rocket putting a 2.4-ton mass simulator into orbit.