"A commission... is currently looking into several reasons for what happened. All of them are one way or another linked to the functioning of the rocket built by Ukrainian firms," said Igor Panarin, a spokesman for Roskosmos, RIA-Novosti reported.

The Dnepr rocket, named after a river crossing Ukraine, plunged last Thursday shortly after take-off and was later found some 150 kilometres from the launch site at Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Remnants of the rocket, which was carrying one Russian and 17 foreign satellites, would be examined by Ukrainian experts before final results of the inquiry are announced, Panarin said.

All rights reserved. copyright 2018 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.