Russian Satellite-Delivery Mission Fails : Space: Israel, Mexico lose orbiters aboard experimental rocket fashioned out of 2 ICBMs.

In a setback to Russia’s fledgling commercial space program, Israeli and Mexican satellites launched Tuesday aboard a converted Russian military rocket have gone astray and are presumed lost, a Russian official confirmed.

“It looks as if something went wrong with the fifth stage, and the rocket never reached orbit,” said Vyacheslav A. Mikhailichenko, spokesman for the Military Space Forces. “Our ground stations cannot find it in space. There is no hope, and the satellites are lost.”

He said the loss was “not a tragedy,” as the launch had been billed as a test and the missing Israeli satellite was insured.

But Russian military officials had hoped that a successful launch would help them attract other customers, and so earn desperately needed cash using converted nuclear missile-launching technology.

The Russian rocket was made out of two obsolete SS-25 intercontinental ballistic missiles, known by the Russian name “Topol” (poplar tree).

The two Topols were converted into a five-stage rocket. Three communication satellites--Israeli, Mexican and Russian--were fitted into the nose, which once carried nuclear warheads aimed at the United States.

It was only the second launch of such a rocket, Mikhailichenko said.

The red, white and blue rocket blasted off at 1 p.m. Tuesday from Plesetsk space pad, about 550 miles north of Moscow, in an operation run by the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces, keepers of the nation’s nuclear arsenal. But ground controllers’ attempts to radio the three satellites went unanswered.

The Gurwin-1, the Israeli communication satellite, was assembled by Israeli students and engineers, many of them emigres from the Soviet Union.

It was named after Joseph Gurwin, a Lithuanian-born philanthropist from New York who donated $1 million to the project. He joked earlier this year that he would be the only living person with a satellite named after him. The American said he wanted to show the world that Israel could build its own satellite.

The Israeli space industry reportedly paid $2 million for its first “sputnik,” and Jerusalem kicked in $500,000 more in government grants. The price of less than $4 million was about a sixth of what an ordinary commercial satellite would cost, the Associated Press said.

Lt. Gen. Yuri Zhuravlyov, head of the Plesetsk cosmodrome, told Russian Independent Television that the military had received “not a kopeck” for the launch. Officials of the Strategic Rocket Forces could not be reached Tuesday to explain the financial details.

“The Israeli side was well aware of the experimental nature of the launch,” Mikhailichenko said. “They knew perfectly well that the risks were high.”

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In a comment indicative of burgeoning capitalist competition among the three Russian agencies now capable of civilian space launches, he added: “If the Israelis had come to us, we would have gladly added it to one of our regular payloads to be launched by reliable rockets that have been proven hundreds of times. Of course, they would have to pay a lot for that.”

Russia’s impoverished but determined space program scored two triumphs earlier this month.

Moscow launched its first American astronaut, Norman E. Thagard, aboard a Soyuz rocket to the space station Mir, then brought Valery Polyakov, who had spent a record 438 days in space, and two other cosmonauts safely back to Earth.