October 17, 2002	Thursday	Sha'aban 10, 1423

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MOSCOW, Oct 16: A Russian Soyuz rocket carrying a research satellite exploded seconds after blast-off, killing one person in a setback that could hit the 90 billion dollars International Space Station programme, officials said on Wednesday.

The 300-ton unmanned Soyuz-U rocket exploded 29 seconds after take-off from Russia’s Arctic Plesetsk cosmodrome late on Tuesday, showering debris over the launchpad, the Emergencies Ministry said.

Shockwaves from the blast killed a 20-year-old serviceman and injured eight people on the ground, defence ministry officials said. The Russian space agency said one of the rocket’s fuel-supply tanks had broken off before the explosion.

The rocket carried a satellite with European research equipment and its mission was not connected to the orbiting International Space Station (ISS), manned at present by two Russians and one American.

But an official at mission control, which monitors launches and the ISS project in which Moscow is a key player, said the accident could threaten the next planned flight to the station.

“Serious conclusions will have to be made as a modified version of this same rocket is due to take a group of cosmonauts to the ISS shortly,” the official, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters.

“There are no plans as yet to postpone the flight,” Sergei Gorbunov, spokesman for Russia’s Rosaviakosmos space agency, told Reuters.

A LOT OF QUESTIONS: Rosaviakosmos said the accident occurred after one of the rocket’s four fuel-filled supply tanks broke off several hundred metres from the ground. This tilted the rocket and caused the remaining three tanks to burst into flames, sending the Soyuz plunging back to earth.—Reuters