A rocket containing a solar sail launched from a Russian submarine and 
went missing. Its telemetry is unknown.

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,67967,00.html
http://planetary.org/solarsailblog/index_04.html

I'm starting to see a pattern of disaster in foreign space programs ( 
including foreign+domestic partnerships ) which is highly irregular. In 
a manner of peer reviewed assessment if one rigorously applies the 
scientific method, Occam's Razor and relative reasoning: testing and 
reviewing everything technical that can and may go wrong again and 
again and again and ruling out probabilities they could conclude certain U.S. 
government agencies are successfully sabotaging foreign space programs. 
It may have something to do with weapons/real estate in space, 
geostrategical goals or fear of space development by the Old Money 
aristocracies.

Given the neo-conservative chutzpah of the current Administration, once 
on the major offensive, it would not surprise me if their cohorts in 
NASA, NOAA, DoD and NSA not to mention mercenaries have been conducting 
economic espionage and sabotage of foreign space programs and, in 
retaliation, foreign agents have been targeting NASA and affiliate 
sites. Possibly a few agents have posed as NASA and ESA employees. Why 
the fuss? Transnational corporations are fighting for power as are 
cliques in governments, the two cross paths and at times collaborate on 
interests.

A typical scenario: the military quietly goes to DefCon 4 and sends a 
surface-to-air missle at a tracked, friendly rocket headed for space or 
already there and claims it was an act of national defense. NASA, 
compartmentalized like the military, cannot publicly rebuke the matter 
for reasons of national security and states the rocket malfunctioned. 
An unusual scenario: NSA countermeasures -- if it's possible to discharge 
directed, high electromagnetic emissions from satellites at spacecraft 
NSA would be the ones involved in such a mission. No possibility of 
public denial since it's top secret, though in private they could 
reassure their colleagues zapping the target was a " defensive " act 
because they " thought " the rocket posed a risk to national security. 
Today, Rep. Roscoe Bartlett of Maryland cut off Democratic speeches on 
the Iraq war to talk about the dangers of electromagnetic pulses from 
nukes, after someone announced changes in the Intelsat program.

Physicists: am I wrong about how I described electricity in space? 
Also, what about university and private telescopes tracking these objects? If 
observatories are doing so now and have been, are there public records 
accessible online?

I believe space exploration is tough work and most of the time there 
are legitimate technical errors or communication & coordination problems 
between humans. Such errors will lead to disaster. However with the 
amount of time and money Brazil, Canada and other countries have spent 
on their space programs in specific incidents the foreign governments' 
space agencies did everything they could ( including verifying and 
following up on that verification of minute technical details ) and 
still, external influences fouled things up and in at least one case 
killed people.

Brazil mourns 21 dead in rocket explosion [on launch pad] (08/23/03):
http://web.archive.org/web/20030825000124/http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/08/24/brazil.rocket.explosion.ap/index.html

Space Disasters:
http://www.members.shaw.ca/kcic3/disasters.html

Beagle 2 was a small British-built lander that was carried to Mars on 
European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter mission. The spacecraft 
was on a trajectory to land on Mars on December 25, 2003 but no signals 
from the lander were ever received by groundbased antennas or NASA or ESA. 
The project has now been declared a failure. Beagle 2 cost roughly 40 
million British pounds ($57 to $65 million US).
...
Canada's first mission to another planet - a $5-million instrument 
package aboard Japan's ($115-million) probe Nozomi, missed Mars and is 
now lost in space. It joins the other 20+ probes to Mars that have been 
lost previously by the USA, the former USSR and Russia. Nozomi was lost 
in space December 2003. The probe was designed to study the atmosphere 
and ionosphere of Mars.
...
December 11, 2002 - An upgraded European Space Agency Ariane-5 rocket 
explodes soon after blast-off from Kourou, French Guiana, sending two 
satellites worth about $600 million plunging into the Atlantic Ocean. 
There may also be other un-reported Soviet and Chinese accidents.
...
December 3, 1999 - NASA's Mars Polar lander loses contact with earth 
after reaching the Red Planet. The $165 million mission is a write-off.
...
September 10, 1998 - A computer malfunction brings down a Ukrainian 
rocket carrying 12 commercial satellites, minutes after blast off from 
Baikonur.