The moon was at its perigee, the closest to Earth that is about 221,567 miles from us. The farthest point of the moon’s orbit, called apogee is at a distance of 252,000 miles from earth.

NASA has allayed the fears generated by the predictions made by astrologers about the impending natural disasters, as the moon comes closest to the Earth. It said that there is nothing harmful or unnatural about it.

As the orbit of the moon is oval, at one end of it, the moon comes closer to Earth by nearly 31,000 miles, and at one point it is at the farthest end called the apogee.

The decision to remove Viktor Remishevsky, deputy chief of Russian Federal Space agency and Vyacheslav Filin, vice president of rocket manufacturing company RSC Energia, was taken after getting the investigation report about the failure on Wednesday.

Two officials fired after investigation
The Russian rocket which was carrying three Glonass-M navigation satellites failed to make it to the orbit, after its launch on Dec. 5th and crashed in the Pacific Ocean.

The satellite is being dubbed as the largest satellite in the world. More details were not given as it is a classified mission.

The unmanned 23-story rocket carried the classified spy satellite.

Brig. Gen. Ed Wilson, commander 45th Space Wing of the Air Force, said that this mission will help them in strengthening the national defense.

Experts believe that the secret payload is a satellite capable of listening to a variety of transmissions from around the world. Such a satellite would have giant antennas stretching up to the size of a football field.