Russia Halts Rocket Launches

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Russia suspended launches of a rocket used in a failed mission to put a European satellite into orbit to map polar ice, according to news reports Sunday.

The Rokot booster rocket will not be launched again pending the outcome of an investigation into Saturday's unsuccessful launch, state-run Rossiya television reported, citing the Russian space agency.

Space agency officials could not immediately be reached Sunday to confirm the report. The rocket's second stage failed to separate following the launch and the Cryosat satellite fell into the Arctic Ocean, Russian and European officials said.

The second stage did not separate apparently because a missing command from the onboard flight-control system caused the main engine to continue to operate after it should have cut off, burning all the fuel on board, the European Space Agency said in a statement on its website.

It said the rocket's top two stages and the satellite fell into the sea north of Greenland, near the North Pole.

The loss of the satellite is a blow to Russia's space program and the European Space Agency, which had hoped to conduct a three-year mapping project of polar sea ice and provide more reliable data to study the effects of global warming.

On Friday, Russian officials lost contact with an experimental mini-spacecraft, the Demonstrator, which was built on contract for the European Space Agency and the European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co. and test-launched from a nuclear submarine.

Source: Wired

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