Kazakh inquiry into rocket crash

By Natalia Antelava
BBC News, Almaty

The crash is an embarrassment for the Russian space programme

Kazakh authorities have opened a criminal investigation into the crash of a Russian-built rocket last week.

Foreign ministry officials said the rocket seriously polluted a vast area when it crashed shortly after lift-off last Thursday.

The failed launch was yet another sign of Russia's troubles with its space programme and an embarrassment it could do without.

The Dnepr rocket carrying 18 satellites failed 73 seconds after takeoff.

It was supposed to carry into orbit satellites from universities in the United States, Japan and Korea.

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The exact reasons for the crash are still being investigated, but the result, the Kazakh government says, has been the spread of highly toxic rocket fuel over a vast territory.

Most of the area is uninhabited, although local media reports that people in nearby villages have been complaining of unusual medical conditions. Some have been taken to hospital.

Kazakhstan says it expects Russia to pay compensation.

Since the break up of the Soviet Union, independent Kazakhstan has been leasing Baikonur cosmodrome to Russia.

It is the world's oldest space station - the place where the first ever satellite was launched, and where Yuri Gagarin, the first man to travel into space, took off from in 1961.

But, once the launch point for the outstanding success of this Soviet space programme, recently Baikonur has been the site of several failures.

Just last week, the launch of a rocket carrying a European weather satellite was postponed indefinitely because of a problem discovered minutes before lift-off.