Wreck near Baikonur may be Dnepr rocket

The fragments that resemble a wreck of a spacecraft discovered near Baikonur in Kazakhstan might be pieces of Dnepr rocket, Tengrinews reports. These may be the fragments of the Dnepr rocket that crashed right after it was launched in July, 2006, experts suggest. Earlier today the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Kazakhstan reported that fragments that look like a spacecraft wreck were discovered three kilometers from Kokzhabaky village in Kyzylorda Oblast in southern Kazakhstan. The place of discovery was cordoned; a commission that includes representatives of the oblast's authorities, sanitary and epidemiological service and ecologists are working there. "If the wreckage, found near Kokzhabaky village is a piece of a rocket, then it probably belongs to the Dnepr that crashed on July 26, 2006," a space from space industry told Interfax-Kazakhstan today, on November 6. According to the source, most of the rockets launched from Baikonur fly in the eastern direction, where there are impact areas for detaching parts of the rockets to fall. "Sometimes the rockets are launched in the northern and southern directions. Usually, they carry remote sensing satellites that must be put into sun-synchronous orbits to provide them effective surveying positions," the expert said. "That Dnepr rocket was launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome on July 26, 2006 in the southern direction. The rocket carried 18 small satellites of different countries. The main load was the remote sensing satellite BelKA of Belarus," he continued. That time the rocket crashed 74 seconds after the launch. Its wreckage fell on uninhabited territories 150 kilometers from the launching pad (Zhahakala village was the nearest inhabited location). The wrecks of the forebody with the satellites fell 20 kilometers from the rest of the rocket, and fragments of the rocket fairing were scattered 50 kilometers around the launching site," the expert explained. Dnepr carrier rocket is based on PC20 Voevoda ballistic rocket -- called the SS-18 Satan by NATO -- the most powerful ballistic rocket in the world.