A Russian rocket exploded in mid-air seconds after blasting off, killing one man and injuring eight, emergency officials said on Wednesday.
The Soyuz-U rocket was launching a Foton-M satellite late on Tuesday from Russia’s Plesetsk military cosmodrome when it blew up 16 seconds after lift-off and crashed into a nearby forest, they told ITAR-TASS news agency. The satellite had been scheduled to make a 15-day voyage around Earth carrying scientific experiments for the European Space Agency, the United States, Canada, Indonesia and Japan.
A space agency representative said engine malfunction may have been responsible for the crash. In Paris, officials with the European Space Agency said all the European scientists who had been at the launch zone were unhurt. An ESA statement said the incident occurred at 1820 GMT on Tuesday.
The 650-kilogramme payload included 44 experiments supported by ESA, in areas ranging from fluid dynamics and biology to growing crystals in microgravity. ESA said it had heard reports of casualties, but its personnel, and those from the French and German space agencies CNES and DLR, who were at Plesetsk were ”safe and sound.”
”A state inquiry board headed by Russian space officials will be shortly set up to investigate the causes of the accident and to evaluate what implications there might be for future Soyuz flights,” ESA said.
”The Soyuz that failed is similar, but not identical, to the version to be flown from Baikonur, (Kazakhstan), on 28 October, carrying ESA’s Belgian astronaut Frank De Winne and two Russian crewmates to the International Space Station for a 10-day mission,” it added.
The Soyuz is a workhorse of space which has been used since 1963. It is widely considered rugged, reliable and cheap, with more than 1 500 manned and unmanned missions to its credit. – Sapa-AFP