Launching satellites is not easy

Launching a satellite on a rocket -- basically a bomb with navigational capability -- is not an easy task. One thing wrong, and about sixteen different kaflooey scenarios are invoked. The Russians proved this a couple of days ago when they lost three of their Glonass satellites, which they are launching to build a satellite constellation that does similar things to the US GPS system, which has been a major success.

So I guess they'll have to be a little more careful measuring the fuel in the tank next time.

Surplus Fuel Believed Cause For Russia's Glonass Satellite Loss

The main cause of the loss of Russia's three Glonass-M satellites was due to human error from fueling the booster rocket with an excess of 1.5-2 tons of fuel, the head of the Russian state commission probing the incident said on Friday.

As they say in the rocket launching biz: "Oops."