A new rocket has parted the skies over Russia, the first spacecraft design introduced by the country since the end of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s.

Lifting off from the Plesetsk military cosmodrome in the subarctic north July 9, the Angara 1.2PP rocket traveled 5,700 kilometers, or 3,541 miles, along Russia's extensive Arctic coast and landed at the Kura test range in the Kamchatka Peninsula, according to a report by RT.

The launch and flight lasted a total of 21 minutes.

Russia's test of the Angara, developed by the Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center in Moscow, was originally scheduled for June 27.

However, a pressure drop in the oxidizer tank of the rocket's RD-191 engine delayed the test until Wednesday, said another report by Reuters.

The RT reports the rocket did not carry a satellite during the test flight, but is designed to deliver a payload weighing up to 28.5 tons -- potential competition for American-based transport outfits, such as Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, otherwise known as SpaceX.

The California-based company's Falcon 9 launch vehicle, currently used primarily to launch the Dragon transport module to the International Space Station, can carry a 14-ton payload to low Earth orbit, while it's anticipated the new Falcon Heavy rocket, still being tested, will be able to transport payloads weighing up to 53 tons.

Russia, like the United States, wants a space program completely independent of foreign support, said Reuters.

The Angara rocket program, initiated during the presidency of Boris Yeltsin, who led the country from 1991 to 1999, was wholly developed and built within the country.

The RT story explains Russia continues to lease the Baikonur Cosmodrome in an ex-Soviet Kazakhstan for Soyuz launches to the ISS, but is building a new launch complex, the Vostochny Cosmodrome, in the far east, near China.

Meanwhile, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which currently relies on Russia for manned launches to the ISS, is looking to commercial spaceflight agreements with SpaceX, Boeing, Sierra Nevada Corporation and Blue Origin to its own transport mission back to U.S. soil.