The Russian defence ministry confirmed that it had lost sight of the craft -- a dual-use vessel that can draw a three-dimensional map of the Earth and locate the precise positions of various targets.

The incident came just a month after President Dmitry Medvedev sacked two top space officials for a similar setback and delivered another humiliating blow to Russia's much-maligned space industry.

The seriousness of the situation was underscored late Tuesday by reports that the defence ministry had set up an urgent joint task force with the Russia's space agency to look for the missing craft.

The Geo-IK-2 satellite was created in Russia to help the military survey land and create a detailed three-dimensional map of the Earth. It was designed to spin in a circular orbit 1,000 kilometres (600 miles) above ground.

But news reports said that the satellite had been put in an an elliptical orbit whose lowest point brought it to within 330 kilometres of Earth.

"We have still not been able to establish contact with the craft, and it looks like most likely, it will be declared lost," a Russian space source told the Interfax-AVN news service.

"The spacecraft will not be able to perform its intended functions at these orbit characteristics," another space official told the news agency.

Reports pointed the initial blame for the failure on the satellite's Briz-KM upper stage rocket.

The satellite's launch had already been delayed from December because of technical malfunctions that were detected at its northern Russian launch site in Plesetsk.

Tuesday's malfunction came less than five weeks after Medvedev fired two top space officials and reprimanded the space agency chief for a launch failure caused Russia to delay the deployment of its own navigation system.

Russia's Proton-M rocket had on that occasion proven too heavy to reach its initial orbit and had been forced to dump its three high-tech Glonass-M satellites near the Hawaii Islands.

Investigators said that accident was caused by a basic fuel miscalculation that made the craft too heavy to reach its required height.

The three Glonass satellites would have completed a system whose research had been started by the Soviet Union in 1976.

Share This Article With Planet Earth

del.icio.us	Digg	Reddit
YahooMyWeb	Google	Facebook

Related Links
Military Space News at SpaceWar.com

Boeing And Northrop Grumman Submit Proposal For Missile Defense Competitive Contract NATO Achieves First Step On TBMD Capability LockMart-Raytheon Team Submits Proposal For GMD Contract Aegis BMD System Completes Tracking Exercise Raytheon nabs $145 million deal in Kuwait Kuwait Awards Contract To Raytheon For Patriot GEM-T Missiles LockMart Receives Contract For Long Range Anti-Ship Missile Demonstrations S. Korea, U.S in talks over missiles UA Engineers Study Birds And Bees To Design Robust Unmanned Vehicles AeroVironment Receives Order For Raven UAS Digital Module Upgrade Kits New US drone spy cameras fail Air Force test: study Three US drone strikes kill 13 in Pakistan USAF Selects Northrop Grumman To Research SOA IT For Integrated Air And Space Command And Control Boeing Tests New Ka-band SATCOM Antenna System Raytheon to supply radios to Aussie army RAF Begin Training With US On Intelligence Aircraft Raytheon Awarded APY-10 Radar Contract For Boeing's P-8A Aircraft LEMV Program Completes Critical Design Review Multi-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar Counters IEDs Boeing And iRobot Team Delivers First SUGVs To USAF Israeli army battles generals' scandals Boeing to revise tanker bid pitch Kaveri engine set for Indian combat plane Brazil reassessing options on arms deal Few regrets in ex-US defense chief's memoir Clinton to join security talks in Germany US says willing to assist India-China dialogue US eyes more Asian defense talks 'Air laser' could find bombs at a distance ONR Achieves Milestone In Free Electron Laser Program US Office Of Naval Research Achieves Milestone Navy test fires electromagnetic cannon