Russia loses contact with satellite after launch

The Russian space agency said on Tuesday it had lost contact with an artificial weather observation satellite hours after it was launched from the Fostochni base, which it opened in 2016 in the far east of the country.

The agency said in a statement that the connection is missing with the moon, which did not reach the orbit required, noting that work is under way to find out the cause of this failure.

The Soyuz rocket was launched by the Meteor at 14:41 local time (0541 GMT) on Tuesday from the Vostochny base, built by Russia to reduce its dependence on the Baikonur base in Kazakhstan.

In addition to the moon, the rocket carries 18 spacecraft to institutions in Canada, the United States, Sweden, Japan, Norway and Germany.

Russia began operating its new plant in April 2016, launching its first missile in the presence of President Vladimir Putin.

Moscow also wanted this base to revive its space sector, which in recent years has been hit by a series of failures that led to the removal of a number of officials, but whose construction was also marred by failures and corruption cases.

The base is built at the site of a Soviet-era missile base, which is closer to the equator than the Plesetsk base in the Russian north, which makes it easier to place satellites in the Earth's orbit.

Source:
http://spacenews.com/contact-lost-with-satellites-after-soyuz-launch/