- MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia
failed on Tuesday to put a five-ton European communications satellite properly
into orbit and it will now circle uselessly until it eventually falls back
to Earth, space officials said.
-
- Konstantin Kreidenko, spokesman for Russia's space authority
Rosaviakosmos, told Reuters the Astra-1K satellite was stuck in an intermediate
orbit after being launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
-
- "The satellite has not reached its assigned orbit
and will now never reach it," he said.
-
- Kreidenko said a secondary booster, which was due to
propel the satellite to a higher altitude, had malfunctioned and was circling
the earth separately from its payload.
-
- The Astra satellite, launched by a Proton rocket, was
now doomed to orbit the earth until gravity pulled it back to Earth, he
said.
-
- The French-made Astra is the world's biggest communications
satellite, with antennae spanning 37 meters. It was due to be used for
radio and television broadcasts as well as for mobile telephone and Internet
services in western Europe.
-
- "Both the satellite and the booster will after a
while fall back to Earth. Both will burn with maybe small bits reaching
the Earth's surface, depending on what materials the satellite was made
of," Kreidenko said. "But there is no danger."
-
- In October, a Soyuz cargo rocket, carrying a European
satellite, exploded on lift-off from Russia's Arctic Plesetsk launch pad.
Two days later a Proton rocket successfully blasted a European research
laboratory into orbit from Baikonur.
-
- Proton, conceived in the 1960s initially as a heavy-lift
rocket to carry bombs, is Russia's workhorse cargo booster.
-
- Russia leases the Soviet-era Baikonur cosmodrome from
Kazakhstan, keeping it as its main space base.
-
-
-
- Copyright © 2002 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited
without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable
for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance
thereon.
|
