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Russian rocket fails to reach target orbit
Reported by: AP/UNB Connect
Reported on: Aug 07, 2012 02:35 pm
Reported in: International

MOSCOW, Aug 7 (AP/UNB) - Russia's federal space agency says an unmanned rocket and its payload of two communications satellites failed to reach orbit, the latest in a series of failures that has dogged Moscow's space program.       Roscosmos said Tuesday that a secondary booster module of the Proton-M rocket carrying Russian and Indonesian satellites switched off earlier than expected minutes after late Monday's takeoff from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.      Last August, Russia lost contact with a communications satellite shortly after a Proton-M launch. In 2007, a Proton-M carrying a Japanese communications satellite crashed.      Roscosmos spokesman Alexei Kuznetsov told the Itar Tass news agency Tuesday that Roscosmos might halt Proton-M launches after an investigation.      The 50-meters (165-feet) long booster with a payload of up to 20 metric tons has been in use since 1965. 

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