Electrifying footage shows a Russian space rocket the moment it’s struck by lightning on takeoff.
The Soyuz-2.1b rocket was zapped after launching Monday, officials said.
The huge bolt appears to go right through the spacecraft, which carried a Glonass-M navigation satellite, as it continues its ascent.
A source told TASS, Russia’s largest news agency, that the strike hit the rocket’s nose but did not affect operations.
The clip was shared by Dmitry Rogozin, director general of Russian space agency Roscosmos, as he praised the launch team.
“Lightning is not an obstacle for you,” he tweeted.
The rockets are specifically designed with protection against all weather “phenomena,” the source told TASS.
“This is yet more proof that lightning cannot damage our aerospace weapons,” Major-General Nikolai Nestechuk, the head of the launch site, Plesetsk Cosmodrome, told the agency. “The weather is not an obstacle and we [the Space Force of Russia’s Aerospace Forces] are all-weather troops.”
