A Russian weather satellite and 18 microsatellites from various nations failed to enter their designated orbits Tuesday following the launch from Russia's new cosmodrome, another blow to the nation's space program.
Russia's Roscosmos space agency said it has failed to establish communications with the Meteor M 2-1 satellite that was launched atop a Soyuz-2 booster rocket Tuesday from Russia's new Vostochny launch pad in the Far East. The agency says it's trying to determine what happened.
Russian news agencies reported the likely cause was the failure of the booster's final stage, the Fregat, possibly caused by a software flaw.
Apart from the Meteor weather satellite, the rocket carried 18 payloads from institutions and companies in Canada, the United States, Japan, Germany, Sweden and Norway, the space agency said.
It wasn't immediately clear if the Meteor and other satellites fell into the ocean or were stranded in low orbit.
National television broadcast live footage of the launch, which took off at 2:41 p.m. local time (0541 GMT), showing the rocket taking off into a gray sky in the Amur region near the Chinese border.
The glitch follows other failed launches in recent years that tarnished the reputation of Russian space industries. Some of the glitches were traced to manufacturing flaws.
Asked about the failed launch, President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov refrained from immediate comment, saying that the Kremlin was expecting space officials' report on the situation.
The failed launch is the second since the Vostochny cosmodrome made its debut in April 2016.
On Monday, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Monday that such contracts would help Russia modernize its space industry.
"The launch of foreign devices with the help of Russian launch vehicles should strengthen our positions on the global market of space services and increase the volume of extra-budgetary funds and investments," Medvedev told a meeting.
The third launch from Vostochny is scheduled for Dec. 22.
"The program of launches will continue next year - it will grow, increase," Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who oversees space, told Medvedev on Monday.
Russia spent billions of dollars to build the new launch pad as a possible alternative to the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan that Moscow has leased from its former Soviet neighbor.
Some observers have disputed the feasibility of the expensive new facility, given the fact that Russia plans to continue using Baikonur for most of its launches. Construction work at Vostochny has been dogged by scandals involving protests by unpaid workers and the arrests of officials accused of embezzlement.
Russia is also home to the Plesetsk cosmodrome in the north, which is used for satellite launches and missile testing.
In October, Russia launched from Plesetsk a European satellite dedicated to monitoring the Earth's atmosphere, the protective layer that shields the planet from the sun's radiation.