Moscow, Aug 7 (IANS) Russia’s Proton-M carrier rocket failed to put into orbit two telecommunications satellites due to problems in its booster stage, federal space agency Roscosmos said Tuesday.
Russia Monday night launched Telkom 3 and Express MD2 aboard the Proton-M from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, Xinhua reported.
However, “the Briz-M booster and the two satellites have not been detected on the transition orbit. The signal from the booster has been received from an interim emergency orbit”, the agency said in a statement.
Preliminary information showed the Briz-M only had fired for seven seconds rather than the scheduled 18 minutes and 5 seconds.
Due to the failure, all launches of the Proton-M rocket were temporarily suspended pending the end of investigations.
