Russia Suffers Embarrassing Pair of Space Mishaps

"The situation is being analyzed." Such is the pronouncement from the Kremlin following a pair of embarrassing space-related mishaps. On Wednesday, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin revealed that human error was responsible for the loss of a $45 million weather satellite called Meteor-M; the rocket carrying that satellite and 18 smaller payloads was launched Nov. 28 from the Vostochny cosmodrome, but Reuters reports the coordinates it was programmed with were for a launch from the Baikonur cosmodrome. The AP describes the latter as Russia's main launch pad, which it leases in Kazakhstan. Russia's space agency has lost contact with Meteor-M as a result. And the bad news for the country comes in twos.

On Thursday came the admission that communication has also been lost with Angola's first national telecoms satellite, dubbed AngoSat-1, which Reuters reports was launched from Baikonur on Tuesday and intended to serve a 15-year communications-boosting mission. Leading Russian spacecraft manufacturer Energia produced the AngoSat-1, and it confirmed it established communication with the satellite after it reached orbit, but "after a while it had stopped sending telemetry" data. No reason for the severed contact was given, though one space expert speculates the many delays in launching and the resulting extended storage time could have damaged the satellite. The AFP notes the $280 million project included the training of roughly 50 Angolan aerospace engineers assigned to work with the satellite. (The International Space Station is conducting an experiment for Budweiser.)