Kazakhs Announce Probe Into Russian Rocket Crash

Kazakhs Announce Probe Into Russian Rocket Crash

September 6, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- An unmanned Russian rocket has crashed after blasting off from the Baikonur Space Center in Kazakhstan.

RFE/RL's Kazakh Service correspondent in Almaty, Danabek Bimenov, reports that no one was injured in the incident early today, which officials said was caused by an engine malfunction.

The rocket was carrying a Japanese telecommunications satellite, as well as more than 200 tons of heptyl, a highly toxic substance used as rocket fuel, at the time of the crash.

Kazakhstan's Emergency Situations Ministry said the Proton-M rocket's debris dropped about 40 kilometers from the city of Zhezqazghan, in the central Karaganda region.

"At the moment the relevant units of the Emergency Ministry are examining the area [of the crash]," Prime Minister Karim Masimov told reporters in Astana. "Those who are guilty will be punished and the ecological damage to our country will be compensated for by those responsible. The situation is under government control."

Kazakhstan's official meteorological service, Kazgidromet, was quoted by ITAR-TASS as saying that prevailing winds were blowing toxic vapors from the crash away from nearby communities.

Meanwhile, a Kazakh presidential envoy to Baikonur, Adilbek Basekeev, said all Proton-M rocket launches from that facility have been suspended.

Reports say two more Proton rocket launches were scheduled from Baikonur later this year.

Two Proton rockets crashed at Baikonur in July and October 1999. Kazakhstan's decision at the time to suspend all operations at the space center caused political tension between Astana and Moscow.

The Baikonur Center is regarded as one of the world's leading space facilities and is leased and operated by the Russian state space agency, Roskosmos.

(with Interfax, ITAR-TASS, Reuters, AFP)

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