Russian satellite failed to separate from booster
A Russian military satellite Mozhayets-5 launched from the Plesetsk space center failed to separate from its booster rocket.
Mozhayets-5 is in a near-Earth orbit with the booster's third stage and is sending no signals to Earth, however, the Iranian Sina-1, China's DMC, Norway's NCube-2, the European Space Agency's SSYTI Express, the United Kingdom's TopSat, Germany's UWE-1, and Japan's XI-V satellites are orbiting successfully, reported the Moscow News Friday.
Russian space officials say there was no emergency situation during Thursday's launch.
"When the Mozhayets-5 educational satellite was placed in orbit, an error occurred in separation of the spacecraft from the adapter," spokesman for the Space Force Alexei Kuznetsov. Space officials said they were trying to establish contact, reported Novosti, the Russian government news agency.
Copyright 2005 by United Press International