Russia has failed in its attempt to put into orbit a Hong Kong commercial satellite. Russian space officials said a problem developed with both the booster rocket and the satellite about six hours into the flight. The Russian news agency, Itar-Tass, said it was now heading gradually back to earth, but a senior official with the satellite company said it was way beyond the Earth's atmosphere and could not return. Our Moscow correspondent, Robert Parsons, reports.

It had seemed like a regulation space launch; the Russian Proton rocket booster blasted off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on time and appeared set for a smooth flight. But six hours and 20 minutes into its journey, problems developed. The booster on the rocket failed on its second impulse and the satellite seperated from the rocket on the wrong orbit.

Early reports that the satellite might fall back to Earth were rejected by a senior representative of the Hong Kong-based Asia Satellite telecommunications company. He said it was well beyond the Earth's atmosphere and couldn't possibly return to Earth, but it was too early to say what the satellite's final fate would be.

The 2,534kg satellite was intended to provide television coverage and telecommunication services throughout Asia, the Middle East and the Commonwealth of Independent States, the former republics of the Soviet Union.