Satellite worth Rs 287 crore 'lost in space' after it was given wrong coordinates

In a surprising development, it has been revealed that Russia lost a satellite last month after the scientists fed wrong coordinates to its rocket. The revelation about the fate of the Meteor-M weather satellite comes at a time when the country had lost contact with another satellite that it had launched for Angola.

The Meteor-M satellite was launched last month by Russian space agency Roscosmos from its launch pad in Vostochny. However, the agency soon lost all contacts with the satellite that weighed around 2800 kg and cost over Rs 287 crore.

The 'lost' satellite is being seen as another setback to the Russian space agency which is already facing severe challenges including budget cuts and other operational difficulties. But to make the matters worse, it was revealed that the mishap took place after the rocket that was carrying the satellite was programmed with wrong coordinates. Instead of providing the bearings of the actual launch site situated in Vostochny, the rocket was fed with the bearings of the launch site in Baikonur situated in Kazakhstan.

According to a report in Engadget, the admission of the error that caused the disaster was made by Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin himself who termed the mistake as an "embarrassing programming error."
However, the space agency on their part have tried to give a different take and claimed that it was an error with the algorithm of the control system that has caused the disaster.