Russia Launches Rocket, Loses Satellite

Russia launched a rocket from its new Vostochny Cosmodrome in the country's Far East but soon reported a failure in deploying a weather satellite, which was the main aim of the mission. National television showed live footage of the Soyuz-2.1 booster launch on November 28 from the Amur Oblast near the Chinese border. Within hours, the Russian space agency Roscosmos said it had failed to establish communications with the Meteor M 2-1 satellite and was trying to determine what happened. Russian news agencies reported that the likely cause was the failure of the booster's final stage, the Fregat. (Roscosmos via Reuters)