“The launch of the Soyuz-2.1a rocket (…) with 38 foreign satellites on board from the Baikonur Cosmodrome has been postponed to a reserve date,” Roskosmos said in a statement, without specifying the reasons for this decision.

The rocket must now be launched on Sunday at 06:07 GMT (07:07 Belgian time), according to the same source.

According to Roskosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin, the postponement was ordered due to a “surge” detected before the launch. “We have decided not to take the risk,” he told the state-run RIA Novosti news agency.

The rocket is to put into orbit 38 satellites from 18 foreign countries, including South Korea, Japan, Canada, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Italy and Brazil. Among these devices is also the Challenge-1 satellite, the first satellite 100% manufactured in Tunisia, created by the telecommunications group Telnet.