An unmanned Russian rocket with a Japanese telecommunication satellite atop crashed after taking off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan early Thursday.
The Proton-M carrier with the Japanese JCSAT-11 satellite blasted off from the central Asian launch pad at around 2:43 a.m. Moscow time (2243 GMT), but failed to send the satellite into orbit, according to the control center.
"There was an accident at the second stage of the rocket, which failed to send the satellite into orbit as scheduled," said Alexander Bobrenev, a spokesman of the Khrunichev Aerospace Center.
Kazakhstan has banned the launches of Proton-M rockets from the Baikonur cosmodrome due to the crash, Itar-Tass cited Adilbek Basekeyev, spokesman for the Kazakh president in Baikonur, as saying.
The Japanese satellite, with a 15-year designed lifespan, is scheduled to provide TV broadcast and telecommunication service for clients in Japan, the Asian-Pacific region and Hawaii, according to the Japanese satellite company JCSAT.
The first two JCSAT satellites were sent into orbit in April and August last year.
Source: Xinhua
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