Another Soyuz rocket launch fails in Russia

Russia's recent poor launch record has continued with yet another Soyuz rocket failure, according to BBC News.

This time, a Soyuz-2 vehicle failed to put a communications satellite into orbit after lifting away from the country's Plesetsk spaceport.
Debris is said to have re-entered the Earth's atmosphere near the western Siberian town of Tobolsk.

In August, a Soyuz failure on a mission to resupply the space station led to a six-week suspension of flights.

Friday's rocket was carrying a Meridian-5 satellite, designed to provide communication between ships, planes and coastal stations on the ground, according to RIA Novosti.

It was a Soyuz-2.1b, the most modern version of the rocket that has been in service in various forms since the 1960s. The failure is said to have occured seven minutes into the flight.

August's botched launch involved a Soyuz-U, which uses a number of different components and systems.

An inquiry into that incident eventually found the rocket's third stage to have experienced a blocked fuel line, which resulted in a premature engine shut-down.

Friday's failure now puts a major question mark against the next Soyuz launch, scheduled for 26 December from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. This flight is intended to put in orbit six satellites for the Globalstar satellite phone company.

Russia has experienced a number of launch mishaps in the past 13 months.

On 18 August, the week before the loss of the space station mission, a Proton vehicle failed to put a $300m communications satellite in its proper orbit.

Back on 1 February, a Rokot launch also underperformed with a similar outcome.