MOSCOW, September 6 (RIA Novosti) - A proton-M rocket with a Japanese communications satellite on board that crashed shortly after launch early Thursday was insured for $300 million, an insurance company spokesman said.
"We are the insurers for this launch with regard to any liabilities before third parties," Vyacheslav Shabalin of the Russian Insurance Center said. "Our representative is on the investigating commission, and once the circumstances of the crash have been determined, we will be prepared to make all the necessary payments."
He said the company has many years of experience insuring space missions and of compensating the costs of failed launches, including the loss of a Dnepr rocket in 2006, which he said was "paid for in full."
The Proton-M, which was launched from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan at 2:43 a.m. Moscow time (10:43 p.m. GMT Wednesday), experienced an engine malfunction and second-stage separation failure 139 seconds into its flight, and came down in the central Kazakh steppe, 50 kilometers (30 miles) southeast of the town of Dzhezkazgan, the spokesman said.
Possible environmental contamination from the booster's highly toxic fuel is a particular concern, and a team has been sent to the crash site to determine the extent of any pollution.
A Proton rocket
A Proton rocket which was intended to launch the JCSAT-11 satellite into a geostationary transfer orbit lifted off and successfully completed its first stage burn, but the second stage failed leading to loss of the rocket and satellite.

The launch vehicle was a Proton M booster with a Breeze M upper stage. More than 300 Proton rockets have been launched, all from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Following the launch failure, Kazakhstan suspended the launch of Proton rockets from Baikonur, Interfax news agency reported.

JSAT Corporation immediately placed an order with Lockheed Martin, the satellite manufacturer, for an identical replacement satellite based on the A2100AX design.