Russia’s federal space agency said today that an unmanned rocket and its payload of two communications satellites failed to reach orbit, the latest in a series of failures that has dogged Moscow’s space programme.

AS Russia’s space agency struggled to fix a probe bound for a moon of Mars that instead got stuck in Earth’s orbit, some experts said the chances of saving the $170 million craft looked slim.

Russia has launched a satellite for Israel that the Israelis say will be used to spy on Iran’s nuclear programme.

A government panel has found that the failed launch of a booster rocket that resulted in the loss of a European satellite earlier this month had been caused by a faulty computer program, Russian officials said today.