guardian.co.uk,
Agencies in Moscow, Tuesday 7 August 2012
The Russian Proton-M carrier rocket being transported to the launch pad at the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Photograph: Roscosmos/EPA |
An unmanned
Russian rocket and its payload of two communications satellites has failed to
reach orbit, the latest in a series of failures that has dogged Moscow's space
programme.
The Russian
space agency Roscosmos said on Tuesday that a secondary booster module of the
Proton-M rocket carrying Russian and Indonesian satellites switched off earlier
than expected minutes after it took off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in
Kazakhstan late on Monday.
The error
replicates a mishap that scrapped the Express AM-4 satellite last summer, at a
cost of $265m (£170m), casting doubt on the reliability of the workhorse
Russian rocket.
Roscosmos
said in a statement that the Briz-M booster had fired its engines on schedule,
but they had burned for only seven of the programmed 18 minutes and 5 seconds
needed to push the satellites into their planned orbit.
"The
chances that the satellites will separate from the booster and reach the
designated orbit are practically non-existent," a space industry source
told the state news agency RIA.
Launches of
such Proton rockets will most likely be suspended pending expert analysis of
the failure, the Russian industry source said.
Moscow,
which carries out around 40% of global space launches, is struggling to restore
confidence in its industry after a string of mishaps last year, including the
failure of a mission to return samples from the Martian moon Phobos.
Indonesia's
Telkom-3, the first satellite Jakarta has purchased from Moscow, was built by
Russia's ISS-Reshetnev with communication equipment made by French-led
satellite maker Thales Alenia Space. It had a capacity of 42 active
transponders to cater to the growing demand of Indonesia's satellite business
service.
Russia's
Express MD2 was a small communication satellite, made by the Khrunichev State
Research and Production Space Centre, for the Russian Satellite Communications
Company (RSCC).