The Soviet Union, opening its secret northern spaceport to foreign journalists for the first time, launched a communications satellite and revealed a major disaster nine years ago that killed 50 space workers.
The accident, the second-worst known space disaster ever in terms of lives lost, came to light Wednesday when Western reporters saw a memorial for the fallen technicians in the main square of Mirny, the space center's bedroom community 500 miles north of Moscow.Anatoli Lapshin, a spokesman for the space center, said the Soyuz rocket was being filled with kerosene and liquid oxygen fuel on March 18, 1980, when an explosion tore through the launch pad, killing 45 workers instantly. Five more people died later from burns.
A similar fueling explosion at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, also revealed for the first time Wednesday, left nine space workers dead on June 26, 1973.