A military satellite named Kanopus ST is reported to have been lost in space after it failed to separate from its booster rocket Soyuz 2-1v on Saturday, Russian media reports say.
Space officials said that the satellite exploded in the atmosphere in a matter of days after the failed launch.
The Kanopus ST was meant to detect submerged submarines for the military and observe maritime activity. It was stuck to the Volga upper stage of the booster rocket Soyuz after launching from Plesetsk Cosmodrome.
The Soyuz rocket should have deployed the satellite into a circular orbit nearly 700 kilometers or 435 miles above the planet. One of the four locks sustaining the Kanopus ST did not open during the separation sequence. Ground controllers were unable to contact the spacecraft and re-issue the separation command.
Russian news agency Tass said the satellite, together with the Volga upper stage, entered the Earth's atmosphere on Dec. 8 and has fully burned up in the atmosphere.
The Kanopus ST satellite reportedly carried a radiometer and a camera used to monitor oceans. The core stage of the Soyuz 2-1v contains one NK-33 engine that was taken from kerosene-fed powerplants. These were first constructed for the N1 moon rocket of the Soviet Union in the 1970s.
Experts said it took about 10 years for the Kanopus ST to be finished, and it was considered promising. The loss of the military satellite marks another setback for the Russian space industry.
"This is a systemic problem. We're dealing with the leftovers of the Soviet space industry that have been in the deepest crisis in recent years," said Pavel Luzin, an independent industry expert.
Military satellites are particularly vulnerable, especially because Russian experts decide not to use foreign-manufactured components due to security issues.
"With military satellites trouble happens more often; their life cycle is just two to three years," added Luzin.
In May this year, a Proton-M rocket that carried a Mexican satellite burned up over Siberia minutes after the launch from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Weeks earlier, a Russian cargo ship failed to dock with the International Space Station. The spacecraft was carrying almost 6,600 pounds of supply.
