Failure of Proton-M carrying Russian and Indonesian satellites is latest in series of mishaps for Moscow's space programme

This article is more than 8 years old

This article is more than 8 years old

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 had 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 the 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).