Russia Suffers Embarrassing Pair of Space Mishaps

"The situation is being analyzed." Such is the pronouncement from the Kremlin following a pair of embarrassing space-related mishaps. On Wednesday, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin revealed that human error was responsible for the loss of a $45 million weather satellite called Meteor-M; the rocket carrying that satellite and 18 smaller payloads was launched Nov. 28 from the Vostochny cosmodrome, but Reutersreports the coordinates it was programmed with were for a launch from the Baikonur cosmodrome. The AP describes the latter as Russia's main launch pad, which it leases in Kazakhstan.

Russia's space agency has lost contact with Meteor-M as a result. And the bad news for the country comes in twos. On Thursday came the admission that communication has also been lost with Angola's first national telecoms satellite, dubbed AngoSat-1, which Reuters reports was launched from Baikonur on Tuesday and intended to serve a 15-year communications-boosting mission. 

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