spacetoday.net: Dnepr launch fails

Posted: Wed, Jul 26, 2006, 8:14 PM ET (0014 GMT)
Dnepr launch (Kosmotras)

The launch of over a dozen small satellites on a converted Russian ICBM failed shortly after liftoff late Wednesday. The Dnepr booster lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 3:43 pm EDT (1943 GMT) Wednesday. However, according to initial reports, the rocket's engines shut down 86 seconds after liftoff, causing the vehicle to crash about 25 kilometers downrange from the launch site. What led to the engine shutdown is not immediately clear. The rocket was carrying 18 satellites, with its primarily payload a Belorussian remote sensing satellite called BelKA. The rocket was also carrying three smaller satellites from Russia and Italy, as well as 14 one-kilogram "CubeSats" primarily built by universities in the US and other countries. The launch was the first failure in over a half-dozen orbital launches for the former SS-18 ICBM; another Dnepr successfully launched the Genesis 1 spacecraft for Bigelow Aerospace just two weeks earlier, from a missile base in southern Russia.