Largest ever comms satellite destroyed

The largest communications satellite ever built is at the bottom of the sea two weeks after a Russian rocket failed to put it into the right orbit.

Russian satellite controllers used the onboard engines of the six-tonne Astra-1K, built by Alcatel Space at a cost of €110m (£70m), to deliberately plunge it into the southern Pacific Ocean.

According to the BBC, the launch went wrong when an upper stage booster unit failed to push the satellite into its intended geostationary orbit, about 36,000km above the Earth.

The owners managed to gain some control over the satellite, but realised that it would never be able to carry out its mission of handling signals for radio, television, mobile phones and the internet.