News Popovkin finds a 'darkside pattern' in Russian space systems failures

[SiberianTiger]

http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-01-russia-hints-foul-space-failures.html

Russia hints at foul play in its space failures
January 10, 2012


The head of Russia's beleaguered space programme hinted on Tuesday that foreign powers may be behind the string of failures that struck his agency in the past year.

Roskosmos chief Vladimir Popovkin told the Izvestia daily he could not understand why several launches went awry at precisely the moment the spacecraft were travelling through areas invisible to Russian radar.

"It is unclear why our setbacks often occur when the vessels are travelling through what for Russia is the 'dark' side of the Earth -- in areas where we do not see the craft and do not receive its telemetry readings," he said.

"I do not want to blame anyone, but today there are some very powerful countermeasures that can be used against spacecraft whose use we cannot exclude," Popovkin told the daily.

One of Russia's most high-profile recent failures involved the November launch of a Mars probe called Phobos-Grunt that got stuck in a low Earth orbit and whose fragments are now expected to crash back down on Sunday.

Popovkin said there was "no clarity" as to why the 13.5-tonne probe's booster rocket failed to fire on schedule.

But he admitted the mission was risky to begin with because it involved an underfunded project whose original designs went back to Soviet times.

"If we did not manage to launch it in the window open in 2011 for a Mars mission, we would have had to simply throw it away, writing off a loss of five billion rubles ($160 million)," he said.

Popovkin was named the head of Russia's space agency in April after its previous chief was sacked in the wake of an embarrassing loss of three navigation satellites during launch.

Yet the problems only multiplied under his watch as Russia lost several more satellites and also saw its Progress cargo ship experience its first-ever failure on a mission to the International Space Station.

The Mars mission setback was followed last month by the loss of the Meridian communications satellite. Its fragments crashed into the Novosibirsk region of central Siberia and hit a house ironically located on Cosmonaut Street.

No injuries were reported but the 50-centimetre (20-inch) fragment blew a hole in the home's roof.

(c) 2012 AFP

 

[Orbinaut Pete]

I think it's obvious who the culprits are...

 

[T.Neo]

Only $160 million for a Mars probe? One could imagine it costing five times more if made in the US...

 

[jedidia]

Only $160 million for a Mars probe? One could imagine it costing five times more if made in the US...

My thoughts exactly.

Anyways, I'm thouroughly out of my league here, so I'd appreciate the community's opinion on the actual topic: How likely a cause would sabotage really be? who would even have interest in a failure of the russian space program?

 

[Artlav]

Blaming american gremlins instead of fixing the space industry and restoring the education system? Sometimes KISS backfires.

 

[Jarvitä]

K'Breel, High Speaker for the Council of Elders, issued the following statement regarding the latest wave of robotic invaders from the Evil Blue Planet:

Subjects! Through iron will and endless perseverance, we have again achieved an astounding victory over the invading forces, preventing at least 50% of the latest wave of robotic invaders from embarking upon the perilous voyage towards our ancestral home. We have full confidence we will be able to meet the remaining invaders in battle as they arrive, as well as in our ability to destroy and forever end the reign of terror of the hated defiler of Meridiani Planum by that time.

 

[Napalm42]

Ah yes, It's always America's fault when shi-stuff goes wrong in the East. Can't be China, North Korea, or any other problematic power in THEIR area, no way.

 

[Cras]

This is just silly.

 

[SiberianTiger]

My thoughts exactly.

Anyways, I'm thouroughly out of my league here, so I'd appreciate the community's opinion on the actual topic: How likely a cause would sabotage really be? who would even have interest in a failure of the russian space program?

Theoretically, lobbyists of competing launch operators. Or insurance companies. Those who wanted to derail Russian nuclear strike capability, have obviously changed tactics and instead of unscrewing bolts from missiles resorted to torching submarines when they are in dry docks. :lol:

To be more specific, here's the list based on http://www.spacelaunchreport.com of the last 8 years' failures in Russian space launches (ICBM tests not included, as there are obviously no Russian ICBM crossing Western hemisphere during tests).

For each year, a number of launch failures is given against a total number of attempted launch. If there's a slightest chance some malicious influence from outside could have taken place, the italic is used.

2004: 1/31

Okean 01-N9/Tsyklon 3 PL
Failure: Remote sensing payload left in 280 x 650 km x 82.6 deg
orbit versus planned 650 km circular sun synchronous orbit.
Possible failure during 3rd stage apogee (2nd) burn.

2005: 3/29

Molniya 3K/Molniya M PL
Excessive fuel consumption by the 2nd-stage engine caused
destruction of the engine at T+4m58s, just before planned
stage 2/3 separation. Failed to orbit. First Molniya-M
launch failure since 6/21/90 after 52 consecutive successes.

Cosmos-1/Volna BA
Failed first orbital attempt by converted sub-launch ballistic
missile. First stage failure at T+83sec. Reports of possible
satellite signals provided some initial uncertainty

CryoSat/Rokot/Briz KM PL
Failed to orbit. On-board flight control failed to command
second stage cutoff. Second stage failed to sep from Briz KM
third stage. Stack fell into Arctic Ocean near North Pole.

2006: 2/26

Arabsat 4A/Proton M/Briz M TB
Briz M failure during 2nd of 4 planned burns stranded Arabsat 4A short of planned GTO. Foreign particles blocked oxidizer supply to booster hydraulic pump.

BelKA + microsats/Dnepr
Failed during second stage burn

2007: 1/27

JCSAT 11/Proton M/Briz M TB
Proton M failed during 1st/2nd stg staging. Cable fault prevented ignition of all pyrobolts. Second stage ignited but could not properly separate.


2008: 2/29

AMC 14/Proton M/Briz M TB
Briz M failure during second of three planned burns stranded AMC-14 in LEO.

Amos 3/Zenit 3SLB/DMSLB
Amos-3 in 34,225 x 39,368 km x 0.72 deg orbit, expected 35,786 x 39,092 km x 0.0 deg. Shortfall of roughly 75 m/s reportedly cost Amos-3 2-3 years of 18 year design life. Problem caused by "programming error".

2009: 1/33

Meridan 2/Soyuz 2-1a/Fregat PL
321 x 36,461km x 62.8 deg, short of planned 1,000 x 39,800 km x 63 deg 12-hr orbit Reported early Fregat shutdown 3-5 sec too soon during 3rd and final burn. Cause traced to bad data about payload input into flight computer.

2010: 1/32

3xGlonass M/Proton M/DM-03 TB
Planned MEO. Impacted Pacific 1,500 km NW of Honolulu. Proton 8 deg deviation. First flight test of Blok DM-03. Suspected 1t DM-03 propellant overload caused 100 m/s velocity shortfall at Proton/DM-03 staging.

2011: 4/36

GEO-IK-2-11/Rokot/Briz KM
Briz KM failure left satellite in 311 x 1,058km x 99.46 deg transfer orbit
(planned 1,000 km circular orbit).

Express AM4/Proton M/Briz M
Contact lost after 4th of 5 planned Briz M burns. Bad guidance program.

Progress M-12M/Soyuz U
Failed to Orbit. 3rd stg propulsion failed T+325 sec. Gas generator fuel blocked.

Phobos-Grunt/Zenit 2SB
Phobos-Grunt Fregat-based propulsion system did not fire, stranding PL in LEO.
Meridian/Soyuz 2-1b/Fregat
Failed to Orbit. 3rd stg failure at T+421 sec.

 

[Notebook]

My money's on:

http://www.dandare.org/dan/stories/venus/v3.jpg

N.

 

[jedidia]

Or insurance companies.

Insurance companies? Aren't they the ones doing the paying in situations like these?

 

[anemazoso]

This is nonsense. There is a long list of solid technical reasons why the darn thing didn't work such as the antenne being behind the drop tanks and Russia's lack of a deep space comms network. There is no need to generate conspiracy theories other than trying to save pride. Why didn't they ask NASA to help track it?

 

[SiberianTiger]

I should certainly count not only failed launches, but also malfunctions of spacecraft in orbit. There were few known of in the recent years, but such information is more difficult to dig up, than anything about launches (because they attract way less reporter attention, and in case of military birds, is just classified - which means, does not always leak :lol. The biggest deal was failure of the 1st Persona type reconnaissance satellite (which is rumored to be a match in capabilities for American KH-11 sats).

Maybe Popovkin is a bit better informed than me in this area.

 

[SiberianTiger]

This is nonsense. There is a long list of solid technical reasons why the darn thing didn't work such as the antenne being behind the drop tanks and Russia's lack of a deep space comms network. There is no need to generate conspiracy theories other than trying to save pride. Why didn't they ask NASA to help track it?

Two corrections here: it was anything else but an issue with antennae blocked by the drop tank. It just suffered a sudden electric death at the planned time of doing its orbit boosting burn.

Second, NASA was asked for help and did help tracking PhG, as was confirmed by Jim Oberg.

 

[Urwumpe]

Only $160 million for a Mars probe? One could imagine it costing five times more if made in the US...

No surprise if you earn just five times less as engineer in Russia, especially in the spaceflight program, and if you have some sort of skills to offer, likely already work abroad or for a better paying employer.

---------- Post added at 06:19 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:15 PM ----------

Why didn't they ask NASA to help track it?

ESA did also track the probe and received the first garbled telemetry from it, as well as trying to send commands.

 

[anemazoso]

Ok. Sorry about that. I guess I should have been following along better with the Phg thread. This story was constantly changing and hard to keep up with and my primary source of info was this forum which I should have kept up with before a made comments.

I know ESA was helping out but I never heard about NASA helping and I track the space news sight daily. I figured there would have been some mention of it on spaceflightnow.com, nasawatch/spaceref, nasaspaceflight.com, spacenews.com or any of the other sites.

Cheers!

 

[RisingFury]

Only $160 million for a Mars probe? One could imagine it costing five times more if made in the US...

Yes and it failed miserably, remember?

 

[Codz]

Yes and it failed miserably, remember?

You get what you pay for...

 

[SiberianTiger]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/russian/science/2012/01/120109_roskosmos_chief_interview.shtml

"In theory, our satellites might be tempered with by Europe, America and China", mulls declaration of Roscosmos head over Vadim Lukashevich, an independent spaceflight expert. "However, when our spacecraft are over Europe or China, they are still under our control. Therefore, America is the only option left. Which is very depressing."

According to Lukashevich, the problem of Russia's spaceflight is not some enemy who hinders it with a sabotage: "If that is true, how would you explain that a Progress didn't even make it to orbit last year, or the Meridian satellite which had the same fate? If we look closer at Phobos-Grunt's sequence of events, we can see that its fatality also occurred when it even was not over the USA territory".

The expert believes that words of the Head of Roscosmos had a purely political rationale. From his point of view, such declarations made by Popovkin are evidence of Russian foreign politics vector change. Lukashevich associates this with Russian presidental election to happen this year. Following this election, Putin might occupy the chair of President again.

"Putin is more of a hawk than of a dove, and therefore a considerable militartization of all areas of life is expectable. Moreover, we now have an opposition force emerged, and having a foreign enemy becomes vital in the political game. This means a rise of demand on politicians of patriotic and nationalist spectre. A good indication of that is appointment of a "hawkish" Dmitry Rogozin to a supervisor of all military and space affairs", speculates Lukashevich.

He thinks that Popovkin is not a man who might blurt out words without a reason. "As a well informed man, he understands how things are working in reality. Before Rogozin's appoitment he clearly acnkowledged that we have a systemic crisis in the space industry. And he said it was the only explanation for our problems. And now a search for a ghosts began. Medvedev goes away after committing a political happy dispatch, and his place will be taken by a man who is a bearer of a different ideology, and whose retinue are different people. And it's important for men the level of Popovkin who were appointed during Medvedev's reign to signal to the comers back into power, flashing bright: "I'm yours, I think the same way you do, and, if you want to look for an enemy, I can help on your quest!"

Lukashevich highlights that, from practical point of view, alleged tampering with Russian spacecraft makes not a slightest sense from any point of view.

"I think, it would be just silly. Why do that? To stop our "Phobos" from departing anywhere? Okay, it did not depart, and now everyone's got a problem, because no one knows where will it eventually fall. America would not win anything on this ground. They might prove they could shut spacecraft down remotely using their own space fleet. Both America and China have ASAT weapons. But in practice, the USA test their weapons on American satellites, and China shoots down their own stuff too. Tripping up another's spacecraft is meaningless and just doesn't benefit anybody", concludes the expert.

By the way, it worth checking out the latest version of the Solar System screensaver http://www.buran.ru/htm/scr2_ru.htm from Vadim Lukashevich's site, now featuring a highly detailed LOK spaceship orbiting the Moon:

 

[N_Molson]

"Putin is more of a hawk than of a dove"

That assumption is not too risky. :rofl: