BRASILIA, Aug 23: A Brazilian rocket exploded on Friday and killed 21 people after an engine ignited by mistake days before a planned liftoff from a jungle launch site.

The disaster ended Brazil’s third attempt to fulfill a long-held dream of becoming a space power.

Another 20 people were seriously wounded in the explosion, which sent a huge plume of smoke into the air above the tropical headland jutting into the Atlantic Ocean where the Alcantara launch base is situated.

“Nineteen people died and there are about 20 seriously wounded,” said Raimundo de Souza, a Public Security spokesman for the northeastern state of Maranhao.

In Brasilia, Defense Minister Jose Viegas said “apparently” 16 were killed but a full count was not yet ready.

Viegas said the explosion was caused when one of the rocket’s four engines ignited by mistake. The blast was heard dozens of kilometres away in the town of Sao Luis.

Nearly 800 people were preparing the $6.5 million, 20-metre rocket for its scheduled launch next week. The unmanned rocket was to have carried two satellites into space.

Officials said the rocket was going through final tests up to Aug 24, after which it would have been ready to start the launch sequence at any point.

Brazil had been hoping to make the first successful venture into space by a Latin American nation. Rockets launched by Brazil in 1997 and 1999 were destroyed shortly after lift-off because of technical problems.

Experts worked since the beginning of July to assemble the so-called Satellite Launch Vehicle. The rocket was to have transported two small satellites, carrying positioning equipment, a communications transmitter and energy source.

They were to have been released into low orbit about 750kms above the Earth less than eight minutes after blast-off.—Reuters