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18 Satellites Lost as Russian Rocket Crashes |
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MOSCOW, July 27, 2006/Satnews Daily/ ― A Russian Dnepr rocket carrying 18 satellites crashed on take-off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Wednesday.
Reports say the rocket failed and crashed to the ground shortly after lift-off, in the process destroying a Russian satellite and 17 foreign satellites, including one from Belarus, and the rest from other countries like US and Italy.
Among the satellites destroyed were more than a dozen CubeSat microsatellites, which were created by ten universities around the world. These satellites were supposed to have been orbited at 500-600 kilometers above Earth, officials said.
A RIA Novosti report said the Dnepr carrier rocket, a civilian version of the heavy R-36M2 Voyevoda (SS-18 Satan) intercontinental ballistic missile, was launched around midnight (8 p.m. GMT Wednesday) but experienced a second stage breakdown 86 seconds into the flight.
The report quoted a Mission Control Center spokesman as saying “in the 86th second of the flight, an emergency engine shutdown has occurred on board the Dnepr carrier rocket.”
Russian space agency deputy chief Yuri Nosenko said the rocket fell to earth about 15 miles south of the launch site. He added there was no reported damage or injuries on the ground.
Wire reports say the reason behind the engine's failure is still a mystery and an investigation into the cause of the failure has begun. But a Roskosmos official has said the rocket's first stage did not complete 10 second of due operation and consequently the engine of the second stage did not switch on.
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