Russia Mozhayets satellite fails to detach from booster
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2005-10-28 20:34

The Russian satellite Mozhayets-5 launched on Thursday from the Plesetsk spaceport failed to detach from the third stage of the carrier rocket and has not sent signal back to earth, the Itar-Tass news agency reported on Friday.

"According to the latest telemetric data, the Mozhayets has not detached from the third stage of the Kosmos-3M carrier rocket and is currently rotating with it on a near-earth orbit," an official of the northern cosmodrome of Russia was quoted as saying.

"No signals are received from the satellite," he said.

All the other seven foreign satellites (originally reported eight) launched together with the Mozhayets "have been successfully placed in the preset orbits and their control transferred to the customers," the spaceport sources said.

"The separation of the other satellites from the carrier rockets took place on Thursday. The first telemetric information from the satellites came to the Earth an hour after launch," the sources said.

The experimental space research spacecraft Mozhayets-5 was the main payload in the launching.

The seven satellites which have been successfully placed into orbit by the booster include one each from China and the European Space Agency and two from Iran.

A special commission on the investigation of the contingency situation with the Mozhayets-5 satellite is to be set up at the Plesetsk cosmodrome, the spaceport sources said.

An Itar-Tass report had earlier said the Kosmos booster was to put in orbit nine satellites.