An unmanned Russian rocket with a Japanese telecommunication satellite atop crashed after taking off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in
The Proton-M carrier with the Japanese JCSAT-11 satellite blasted off from the central Asian launch pad at around 2:
"There was an accident at the second stage of the rocket, which failed to send the satellite into orbit as scheduled," said Alexander Bobrenev, a spokesman of the
The Japanese satellite, with a 15-year designed lifespan, is scheduled to provide TV broadcast and telecommunication service for clients in
The first two JCSAT satellites were sent into orbit in April and August last year.
