Russian crippled satellite fragment hits residential house

PanARMENIAN.Net - A fragment of a Russian satellite that crashed into Siberia in the latest setback for Russia's space program hit a residential house on a street named after cosmonauts, officials said Saturday, Dec 24, AP reports.

The Meridian communications satellite failed to reach orbit Friday due to a failure with its Soyuz rocket, raising new concerns over the Russian space program which has now lost over half a dozen satellites in the last year.

Its fragments crashed into the Novosibirsk region of central Siberia and were found in the Ordynsk district around 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of the regional capital Novosibirsk.

"A sphere was found, around 50 centimeters (20 inches) in diameter, which crashed into the roof of a house in the village of Vagaitsevo" in the Ordynsk district, an official in the local security services told the Interfax news agency.

In an extraordinary irony, the official said that the house was located on Cosmonaut Street, named after the heroic spacemen of the Soviet and Russian space program.

There were no reports of casualties while officials said that radiation was within normal limits. The owner of the house Andrei Krivoruchenko, who was at home with his wife at the time, said that he heard a huge noise and a crash as the satellite hit his roof.

"I climbed up onto the roof and could not work out what had happened. Then I saw a huge hole in the roof and the metal object," he told Russian state television.