Russia loses Mexican satellite after rocket failure

Russia on Saturday lost a Mexican satellite on launch just hours after a glitch with a manoeuvre involving the International Space Station, the latest in a string of embarrassing failures for its troubled space programme.

Russia’s Roscosmos space agency said in a brief statement that a Proton-M rocket carrying a Mexican satellite had suffered a problem on launch early on Saturday.

“An emergency situation took place when the Proton-M rocket launched with a MexSat-1 satellite. The reasons are being identified,” the agency said. “The Mexican satellite is lost. Launches of rockets of the Proton type will be grounded until the reason is identified,” a source in the space industry told RIA Novosti state news agency.

Russian President Vladimir Putin “naturally was informed” of the satellite failure, his spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists, cited by the Interfax news agency, declining further comment.

The failure came just hours after a separate glitch in which a Russian Progress spacecraft docked to the ISS failed to switch on its engines on command from mission control in a planned manoeuvre to shift the ISS into a higher orbit.

Russia’s space programme has experienced a troubling number of accidents in recent years. RIA Novosti state news agency criticised what it called “a negative record for Roscosmos -- several accidents in space in three weeks.”