Space Rocket Falls Back To Earth, Burns Up The Atmosphere

A commercial satellite was reported to have been lost, prompting Russia to begin investigation on Sunday. This is aggravated by a separate technical lapse noted on the International Space Station, which all the more caused fear in the industry.

On Saturday, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev ordered an explanation from the space agency lead Igor Komarov and the entire team. The accident, involving the Proton-M rocket transmitting a Mexican telecommunications satellite, had been discussed by a commission on Saturday, according to the TASS state news agency, which cited a space industry author.

According to the Roscosmos space agency, the machines running the third phase of the rocket taking the satellite into orbit broke down. This resulted in the third and latter stages to fall back to the Earth and burn up the atmosphere. The technical failure reports made by the Russian media and state-controlled agencies were rather blunt. Initial reactions revolved around the quality assurance mechanisms of the relatively low-paid space industry department. The head of Roscosmos was also questioned due to previous setbacks and failures.

"The best of the best do not go to work in the rocket and space sector, Yury Karash of the Russian Academy of Comonautics told the Russkaya Sluzhba Novostei radio. “There is nothing to attract highly qualified specialists: the pay is low and it's not very prestigious to work there."

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