Russian rocket crashes seconds after launch in Kazakhstan

A Russian missile carrying a handful of small satellites crashed shortly after its launch in Central Asia on Wednesday.

The Dnepr rocket lifted off at 3:43 p.m. EDT from the Baikonur Cosmodrome launch pad in Kazakhstan.

Russian Federal Space Agency officials said the rocket's engine shut down 86 seconds after lift-off.

Nobody was reported to be hurt on ground.

According to Russian wire reports, the rocket - a modified intercontinental ballistic missile - crashed about 25 kilometres South of the launch site.

The reason behind the engine's failure is still a mystery. An investigation into the cause of the failure has begun.

The rocket was carrying more than a dozen CubeSat micro-satellites, which were created by ten universities around the world.

Most of those satellites belonged to foreign customers, including Italy and the U.S.

They were supposed to orbit at 500-600 kilometres above Earth, officials said.

The crash comes two weeks after another Dnepr launch in which a U.S. inflatable module successfully lifted-off at the Yasny Launch Base in Moscow.

The spacecraft was a prototype for future commercial space habitats, developed by hotel mogul Robert Bigelow of Nevada's Bigelow Aerospace.

Photography: Global Security

Source: Discovery Channel Reports, July 27 edition