Russia loses contact with satellite

Russia said it had lost contact Tuesday with a weather satellite just hours after it was launched from its Vostochny cosmodrome, in only the second rocket liftoff from the new spaceport. The glitch was a fresh embarrassment for the Kremlin and emblematic of problems plaguing Russia's beleaguered space programme which has suffered a series of setbacks over recent years, experts said.
Apart from the Meteor weather satellite, the rocket carried 18 payloads from institutions and companies in Canada, the United States, Japan, Germany, Sweden and Norway.