[FPSPACE] Kazakhstan suspends Proton launches from Tyuratam following sat launch failure

[pjp]

Fro Agency France Presse.

 

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Kazakhstan suspends Proton satellite launches from Baikonur

 

Kazakhstan on Thursday announced the suspension of satellite launches by
Proton rocket from the Baikonur space centre after the failed launch of a
Japanese telecommunications satellite, Interfax news agency reported.

"A failed launch of a Proton-M means automatic suspension of such launches
from Baikonur until all the circumstances are cleared up. This is laid down
by a Russian-Kazakh agreement," Adilbek Bassekeyev, Kazakh President
Nursultan Nazarbayev's special representative at Baikonur, said.

The launch of the satellite JCSat 11 from the Russian cosmodrome at Baikonur
failed early Thursday, the Itar-Tass news agency had quoted Khrunichev space
centre as announcing.

First reports said a technical failure linked with an engine in the Russian
Proton-M rocket carrying the satellite took place a few minutes after the
launch at 02:43 am Moscow time (2243 GMT Wednesday).

As a result, the rocket plunged back to earth in a remote region of
Kazakhstan, Itar-Tass quoted a spokesman of Russian space agency Roskosmos
as saying.

First reports said there were no victims and nobody was hurt.

"A state commission has been set up to inquire into the causes of the
malfunction," Khrunichev centre spokesman Alexander Bobrenev was quoted as
saying.

JCSat 11, intended to retransmit television broadcasts, was to have covered
Japan, the Asia Pacific region and the Hawaii island group.

The JCSat company, one of the Asia Pacific region's leaders in satellite
television, already has eight satellites in orbit. JCSat 11 was to have been
a reserve.

The Proton M rocket is an updated version of the heavy Proton K, the most
reliable rocket in the world over nearly 40 years.

In line with decisions of the Russian government, all commercial launches by
Proton rockets are made by the Russian-American joint venture
ILS-International Launch Services Inc. which has carried out around 40 since
it was set up in 1996.