A Russian daily says the fact that South Korea and Russia have agreed on a third launch of Korea's Naro space rocket implies that Russia effectively acknowledges its responsibility for the failure of the second launch.

The online edition of Russian government daily Rossiyskaya Gazeta said that in the first launch in 2009, the first stage of the rocket operated normally and that the failure was due to the improper separation of a fairing covering the satellite.

However, the paper said that the data analysis for the second launch in June shows that the first stage of the rocket, produced by Russia, had problems.

The paper added that the official results on the cause of the failure have yet to be released, but experts believe that there was some type of malfunction during the first stage.