A Russian Zenit 2 rocket launched a hush-hush military reconnaissance satellite into orbit Monday.

The Ukrainian-made two-stage vehicle lifted off at 1010 GMT (6:10 a.m. EDT) from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The payload was only identified as Kosmos-2372. Given its classified nature, the Russian Ministry of Defense provided no further details on the craft.

Interfax news agency reported the launch was dedicated to the memory of Gherman Titov, Russia's second cosmonaut who died on September 20.

Titov was directly involved in the creation of the Zenit rocket, the report said. In the mid-1980s, he chaired the State Zenit Space Missile Complex Testing Commission and supervised the first Zenit test launch from Baikonur in 1985.

The updated Zenit 3SL rocket is used by the commercial Sea Launch venture that launches from an ocean-going platform station in the Pacific Ocean along the equator.