Russian space launch flops

Russia’s Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Thursday that this week’s failed space launch has dented the nation’s prestige and that those to blame must be held responsible.

A Proton-m booster rocket launched Monday failed to place two communications satellites into target orbits, a mishap that followed several other botched launches. An official investigation is underway.

Medvedev said thursday the failure could have been caused by “traditional sloppiness.” He says he will chair a government meeting next week to look into the case and name those responsible for the failure.

Russia’s space program has suffered a series of humiliating failures blamed on manufacturing flaws and engineering mistakes. They included the loss of a robotic probe designed to study a moon of Mars that was launched in November and eventually came crashing down in January.

In August 2011, a Soyuz booster rocket similar to those ferrying crews and cargo to the International Space Station failed, raising the prospect of leaving the space outpost unmanned. Russian space officials eventually blamed the crash on an “accidental” manufacturing flaw and checked all rockets for similar problems, and the Soyuz launches resumed.

Russia lost three navigation satellites in December 2010, then a military satellite in February 2011 and a telecommunications satellite in August of that year.