MOSCOW (AFP) - Russia is to launch a European weather satellite in September or October, the Russian space agency said, setting a time frame for the launch after it was postponed three times in July.

"The launch of MetOp will take place at the end of September or the beginning of October," agency spokesman Igor Panarin said in comments broadcast on Moscow Echo radio. No precise date had yet been fixed, he added.

The launch of the project, whose backers include the Paris-based European Space Agency, was postponed in July because of a series of technical problems with the satellite's Soyuz-2 launcher.

The four-ton satellite is the most complex of its kind, carrying around a dozen instruments for measuring weather patterns and transmitting back data.

The European Space Agency says that this and two more satellites to be launched in coming years will provide higher quality data to improve weather forecasting and climate monitoring.

Panarin also responded to environmental concerns of residents around Sverdlovsk in Russia's southern Urals region.

Local newspapers have voiced fears that debris from the launch would fall over the Sverdlovsk region after the satellite blasts off from Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome in neighbouring Kazakhstan.

The three satellites are costed at 2.4 billion euros (three billion dollars). They will work in conjunction with weather satellites operated by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).