KA-BOOM! Russian rocket EXPLODES over Siberia minutes after lift-off

Russia's Proton-M rocket burned up over Siberia this morning just minutes after blast-off, the country's federal space agency has confirmed.

Roscosmos said in a statement that the rocket, which had been carrying Mexican satellite MexSat-1, suffered an "abnormal operation of the third stage engine booster" at around nine minutes into the flight.

It added:

The accident occurred at an altitude of 161 km [100 miles]. The third stage, upper stage and spacecraft almost completely burned in the atmosphere.

The agency claimed that the rocket and satellite – which was intended to be in service for the Mexican government for 15 years – "almost completely burned in the atmosphere" as they hurtled towards terra firma.

Earlier reports had suggested that Proton-M and the bird it was carrying had crashed landed in Siberia.

О ситуации с ракетой-носителем «Протон-М»: http://t.co/3HjcYgT4Qj pic.twitter.com/lSD2zq2ma7

— РОСКОСМОС (@fka_roscosmos) May 16, 2015

However, those claims were pooh-poohed by state-run Sputnik. It said that there had been no local reports of space debris plummeting to the ground in populated areas.

Roscosmos said it planned to investigate the cause of the accident, which is the latest in a series of gaffes to have blighted Russia's space programme.

Earlier this week, Roscosmos was forced to delay returning the current International Space Station crew back to Earth while a full probe was being carried out into the botched Progress capsule delivery last month.

The Progress M-27M pod, loaded with three tons of supplies, blasted off on 28 April but there was an explosion onboard shortly after the launch. The spacecraft then refused to respond to directions from controllers on the ground.

Progress remained in low-Earth orbit spinning wildly until finally falling back to Earth and crashing into the South Pacific Ocean on 8 May. ®