Specialists have said the crash on December 27, 2000, of a Tsiklon-3 rocket with six satellites aboard is likely to have been the manufacturers' fault.
The crash was caused by a failure of the control system of the Tsiklon-3's third stage, the Russian Aviation and Space Agency's press service has said.
A commission that included officials from Russia's Aviation and Space Agency and Defense Ministry and industrial specialists in Russia and Ukraine concluded that the control system failure had been the result of a mistake by the manufacturers or a flaw caused by the long storage of the rocket.
Meanwhile in other Russia launch news Khrunichev space center and the Intersatellite international space communication organization have signed a contract for launching two small communication satellites into a geostationary orbit on the Rokot carrier rocket, the Khrunichev center's press service has told Interfax.
The first of the satellites is to be launched from the Plesetsk cosmodrome at the beginning of 2003.
Copyright 2001
