Moscow, May 16 (EFE).– The Mexican communications satellite Centenario disintegrated Saturday in the atmosphere hours after its liftoff from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the Russian space agency Roscosmos reported.

“The accident occurred at a height of 161 kilometers (100 miles). The third stage of the carrier missile and the space device have almost completely disintegrated in the atmosphere,” the agency said in a communique.

The Mexsat-1 satellite, which should have provided telecommunications services for Mexico and part of Latin America, was unable to separate from the third phase of the Russian Proton-M carrier rocket, about which Russian President Vladimir Putin has been notified.

“For now, we have not detected any falling fragments that have not burned up,” the source said, adding that the satellite was insured.

Roscosmos has created an investigative commission to determine the circumstances of the failure, while authorities are sending helicopters to the Lake Baikal region where residents heard a powerful explosion.

The launch, which should have placed the satellite in geostationary orbit at 113 degrees West Longitude, took place Saturday at 12:47 a.m. Central Mexico Time (0547 GMT) and could be seen on a live feed on the Web at sct.gob.mx.

The departure of the Centenario was originally scheduled for April 29, but was postponed at the request of Boeing Satellite Systems International after an anomaly was discovered in a similar craft

Centenario was designed to serve for 15 years, has an antenna 26 meters (85 feet) in diameter, and was to become fully operational 10 months after launch.

This was the second failure in the Russian space program in the last 24 hours, after it was found impossible to activate the motors on its expendable cargo spacecraft Progress, which was intended to correct the orbit of the International Space Station.

On last April 28, another failure caused the destruction of another Progress cargo spacecraft that was carrying food and oxygen for the ISS crew. EFE