MOSCOW
(Interfax-AVN) - Specialists of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos)
are studying reports suggesting that pieces of Russia's Soyuz-2 launch vehicle,
which blasted
off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on December 27, might
have fallen on U.S. territory, Roscosmos spokesman Igor Panarin told
Interfax on Friday.
"We do
not rule out that pieces of the upper stage of the Soyuz-2 launch vehicle might
have been registered in the atmosphere over U.S. territory. We are analyzing
the information available to us more thoroughly now," he said.
There is
nothing extraordinary about space junk, including spent rocket stages and spent
satellites, falling on Earth, Panarin said.
"Dozens
of thousands of space junk objects remain in orbit around Earth. Specialists are monitoring them.
Some of them burn up in the atmosphere or fall on Earth every day," he
said.
The media
buzz surrounding the situation with the Soyuz-2 rocket is unjustified, he
added.
The
rocket's pieces that allegedly fell on U.S. territory cannot be parts of
Russia's Fregat upper stage that placed France's COROT
satellite into orbit on December 27, Panarin said.
"Specialists
of the Lavochkin research and development center, where the Fregat upper stage
was manufactured, said that they know the area where Fregat was dumped for
certain. It was dumped into the Pacific Ocean on December 27," Panarin
said.
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