BERLIN, Oct. 8(Xinhuanet)-- A European Space Agency(ESA) official said Saturday in Germany that it was possible that the missing European satellite has taken a different orbit than planned.

Flight director Alan Smith, speaking at the ESA control center in Darmstadt, Germany that it was unclear if the final stage of the rocket, which carried the agency's Cryosat research satellite, had ignited.

German news agency DPA quoted Volker Liebig from the ESA as saying no radio signal had been received either from the Cryosat satellite probe itself or from the final stage of the rocket launch.

The European research satellite did not respond to a communication command six minutes after the carrier rocket blasted off from the Plesetsk space center in northern Russia Saturday evening.

Russian General Oleg Gromov, deputy commander of the Space Forces speculated that it has crashed into sea after launch.

"We believe the satellite and the rocket fell into the sea near the Arctic," Gromov said, adding an emergency commission had been set up to investigate the incident.

The satellite was to have spent three years orbiting the earth and gathering information on the effect of climate change on the polar ice caps by measuring the thickness of the ice sheets covering the north and south poles. Enditem