Kazakhstan not to ban Russian rocket launches from Baikonur

Kazakhstan does not plan to ban launches of Russian rockets from its space center in Baikonur after accident with Progress M-12M space freighter, Talgat Musabayev, the head of the Kazakh space agency, Kazcosmos, said. Musabayev said it was not right to immediately ban the launches as the rockets were being successfully launched for already more than 40 years. "This is the first failure out of 136 launches. It is an eco-friendly rocket. The accident has not done any harm to Kazakhstan," Musabayev said. Musabayev also added he categorically ruled out any possibility that parts of the rocket might have fallen on the territory of Kazakhstan. The space freighter failed to separate from the third stage of the Soyuz-U carrier rocket on the 325th second of the flight, and according to Musabayev, it was already far away from Kazakhstan. The Soyuz-U carrier rocket blasted off from the Baikonur Space Center in Kazakhstan and was scheduled to separate at 5:09 p.m. Moscow time [13:09 GMT]. The wreckage of the Russian Progress M-12M space freighter fell in South Siberia's Altai Republic. Although no casualties or any damage have yet been reported. This is the second spacecraft loss for the Russian space industry. On August 18, the Express AM-4 telecommunications satellite failed to separate from the Proton-M carrier rocket and could not reach the designated orbit.