Russia test-launched a mini spacecraft designed for ferrying cargo from space to Earth Friday on a sea-based ballistic missile. (Photo: Xinhua/Reuters)

MOSCOW, Oct. 9 (Xinhuanet) -- After two days of search operations, Russia has suspended its efforts to find an experimental mini-spacecraft launched last Friday and missing during landing on the eastern peninsula of Kamchatka, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Sunday.

    The search in the Kamchatka region involving five aircraft and 150 people on the ground failed to find the device and was suspended Sunday, the Defense Ministry said.

    Scientists need to recover the device to assess whether it was deployed successfully and withstood the re-entry, media reports said.

    The Demonstrator spacecraft, designed to carry cargo and passengers from the International Space Station to the earth, was launched off the nuclear-powered submarine Borisoglebsk in the northern Barents Sea at 1:30 a.m. (2130 GMT) Friday and was reported to have descended toward its target on time half an hour later.

    But scientists lost radio contact with the craft later and had to call off the search at nightfall.

    It had been planned that the Demonstrator would be folded up and transported to the space station on a Russian Progress cargo ship and would be used to bring payloads back to the earth, designers say.

    The ship's collapsible, cone-shaped body was made of light material that can withstand high temperatures and it could fly on a predictable trajectory without engines, which made it a cheap alternative to the Soyuz spacecraft currently in use.

    The mini-spacecraft, built in Russia on contract with the European Space Agency and the European Aeronautic Defense & Space Co., was expected to bring cargo weighing up to several tons back from orbit in the future, the craft's constructors said.

    This was the fourth test of the Demonstrator's launch, with the previous attempts during 2000-2002 failing due to various problems in the launch's stages or landing. Enditem