Oct. 15, 2002, 5:59PM

Unmanned Russian rocket explodes after launch
Houston Chronicle
MOSCOW - An unmanned Soyuz-U rocket carrying a space laboratory exploded
29 seconds after take-off from Russia's Arctic Plesetsk cosmodrome on
Tuesday, a mission control official said. 

The rocket was launched at 10:20 p.m.(1820 GMT) and all contact was lost,
the official said. 

The Soyuz-U booster rocket is one of the most reliable Russian
spacecraft, the official said. 

"We haven't had an accident for 11 years with this Soyuz booster rocket,"
he said. 

The launch on Tuesday was not connected with the operations of the
International Space Station.