Baikonur accident is Roskosmos' internal issue: Mussabayev

Referring to the international agreements, head of Kazakhstan Space Agency (KazKosmos) Talgat Mussabayev says that the accident at Baikonur cannot be qualified as an emergency situation, Tengrinews.kz reports. “In line with article 1 of the agreement between the governments of Kazakhstan and Russia on actions in case of accidents during rocket launches from Baikonur cosmodrome, collapse of a rocket (launched from Baikonur) or any of its parts at the territory of Kazakhstan outside the territories rented by Russian from Kazakhstan shall be qualified as an emergency. So, legally this is not considered an emergency, but an internal issue of RosKosmos. They have already declared its verbally,” Mussabayev said at the government meeting. “We are communicating with them and have ask them to provide details of the accident. There is no grounds to create a government commission on the matter in Kazakhstan. This is an internal issue of RosKosmos, but we are still working on this law,” he continued. Mussabayev explained that parts of the rocket collapsed between Baikonur’s platforms 81 and 200 approximately 2-3km from the platform 81: this is “right in the middle between the two platforms”. “This agreement doesn't hinder us from creating a government commission to study the effect of heptyl on the environment and people, does it?” Prime-Minister Serik Akhmetov asked. “No, this is a prerogative of Kazakhstan government. If we initiate it ourselves, then yes. But they are insist that this is unnecessary,” Mussabayev said. Earlier the Prime-Minister instructed to form a commission to study the effect of the accident at Baikonur on the ecology. Russia’s Proton-M carrier rocket [equipped with a DM-3 booster] carrying three Glonass-M navigation satellites crashed right after the lift-off at Kazakhstan-based Baikonur cosmodrome. By Renat Tashkinbayev