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Russian rocket explodes, kills soldier©Associated PressOctober 17, 2002 MOSCOW -- A rocket carrying a communications satellite exploded several seconds after liftoff from a launch pad in northern Russia, killing one soldier, the military said Wednesday. Russian media said the accident could delay a manned launch. A private was killed and eight other soldiers were injured in the accident Tuesday night at the Plesetsk launch facility, news agencies said, with ITAR-Tass reporting that six of them were hospitalized. The Defense Ministry spokesman, who declined to give his name, said he could not confirm reports of injuries. In the launch from Plesetsk, which is operated by the Russian military's Space Forces, a Soyuz-U rocket blasted off carrying a Foton-M satellite that contained scientific experiments from several countries including Russia and the United States. The rocket exploded about 20-30 seconds after liftoff. The cause of the explosion was not immediately determined. The Interfax-Military news agency identified the soldier who died as a private born in 1981. Officials did not say how the soldier was killed, but pieces of the rocket's first stage crashed down onto the grounds of the sprawling launch facility, causing minor damage. A spokesman for Russia's space agency Rosaviakosmos, Sergei Gorbunov, said Russia has no intention of halting use of Soyuz rockets, according to ITAR-Tass, but both ITAR-Tass and Interfax reported that the scheduled Oct. 28 liftoff of a different type of Soyuz that is to carry three men to the international space station could be postponed. A final decision on the date of the launch of a Soyuz-TMA from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, carrying two Russians and a Belgian is not likely until experts investigating Tuesday's accident have made their findings, ITAR-Tass reported.
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