Russia’s prestige takes another hit as satellite rocket crashes after launch
The failure follows a long string of launch mishaps that could tarnish Russia’s reputation and eventually cost it a share in the lucrative satellite launch market. It also hurt one of the Kremlin’s pet projects, the GLONASS satellite navigation system intended to serve as a Russian equivalent of the West’s GPS system.
The Proton-M booster suffered an emergency shutdown of its engines 17 seconds into the flight and crashed over a mile from the launch pad on the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the Russian Space Agency said.
