Launch News (FAILURE) Proton-M/Briz-M launch with Express-AM4R, May 15/16, 2014

[MaverickSawyer]

With quality issues like these, I wonder if it's still sensible for US to buy Russian rocket engines :lol:

If you fix them up with US QA and US health management electronics... :lol:

Hey, don't knock their kerolox engines. They're still far better at that than the US. We stuck all our expertise into solids and LH2/LOX. That said, Urwumpe has a point. When was the last serious failure of a US heavy launcher that left the payload unable to reach orbit?

 

[MattBaker]

Is it me, or did a manned Mars mission just slip another 20 years?

I doubt a manned Mars mission involves a Proton. If you believe a Russian launcher is involved I would say more like the Angara. Which doesn't even launch in the first place so...
The big payloads that might be hit by this are more like ExoMars, the Nauka MLM and possibly their GLONASS system.

With quality issues like these, I wonder if it's still sensible for US to buy Russian rocket engines :lol:

There was no Atlas V failure during first stage flight up to this date, only one partial failure during the Centaur burn.
So, yeah it is. The Atlas V works as reliable as the Ariane V. And the Soyuz rockets seem well, too. It's just the Proton that fails and fails and fails.

 

[boogabooga]

Hey, don't knock their kerolox engines. They're still far better at that than the US. We stuck all our expertise into solids and LH2/LOX. That said, Urwumpe has a point. When was the last serious failure of a US heavy launcher that left the payload unable to reach orbit?

2011.

 

[MaverickSawyer]

When was the last serious failure of a US heavy launcher that left the payload unable to reach orbit?

Heavy launcher. Something that's in the same general class as Proton. Taurus... has problems, yes. It's not of the same class as Proton, though.

 

[astrosammy]

Oh Glory... at least my name was send to the ocean floor!

Heavy launcher? Maybe some Atlas or Titan in the 90's...

---------- Post added at 02:43 ---------- Previous post was at 02:39 ----------

"Oh no..." (1998)

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zlf0lpnJ7-4"]Titan IV Explodes After Launch - YouTube[/ame]

 

[RisingFury]

Oh Glory... at least my name was send to the ocean floor!

Oh, you think that's bad? Every mission I put my name on went to the ocean floor. I stopped putting my name on probes and satellites to increase their chances of success... :lol:

 

[PeterRoss]

:facepalm:

 

[MattBaker]

Heavy launcher. Something that's in the same general class as Proton.

Delta IV Heavy, 2004. Although the 3CS satellites were more like microsatellites. But payloads nevertheless.

Otherwise, does the Falcon 9 count as the same class as the Proton? It does launch payloads into GSO. If so, 2012, secondary payload.

The problem is that there are relatively few launchers as heavy as a Proton. You could always argue "A Delta III was only able to take 8 tons to LEO, not the same class!!!"

---------- Post added at 01:30 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:29 AM ----------

Oh, you think that's bad? Every mission I put my name on went to the ocean floor. I stopped putting my name on probes and satellites to increase their chances of success... :lol:

Hypothesis: Missions needing media attention by putting names on them aren't important enough to spend big sums of money on reliability.

 

[boogabooga]

Wasn't there also a Japanese Venus probe with a lot of names on it that got stranded in solar orbit?

 

[Eraser]

Mr. Rogozin, I suggest that you help fix your country's own heavy trampoline first before mocking about those of others! (*) :rant: :dry:

Karma is a *****, man. :facepalm:

 

[MattBaker]

Wasn't there also a Japanese Venus probe with a lot of names on it that got stranded in solar orbit?

Akatsuki

Although it might end up where it should have been next year, if we all .

 

[Yurik]

Rogozin statement on the background of these catastrophes and other Phobos-Grunt on the colonization of the Moon to 2030 looks even more comical. :huh:

 

[Cosmic Penguin]

The accident occured right at the very end of the video, at around the T+9 minutes mark (about 40 seconds from 3rd stage shutdown).

"T+530 seconds - pitch, yaw, roll are nominal"
then there's a pause, and then
"An off-nominal situation has occured on the launch vehicle. The report ends."

To put things into perspective, the last Proton launch failure linked with the 3rd stage was in August 1990 (foreign object in engine oxidizer feed line). The last time the RD-0210 series of rocket engines, which are used commonly across the Proton's 2nd and 3rd stages with only slight differences, had failed was during the twin Proton failures in July and October 1999 (*), both caused by foreign particles in the 2nd stage engines' gas turbine pump. Before that a launch failure in May 1993 was caused by propellants contamination causing damage to the 2nd stage engines.

(*) Ironically those failures at that time caused NASA et al. worrying about whether the Zvezda module of the ISS could be launched successfully and lead to contingency preparations of making use of the Interim Control Module (ICM), one subject of recent interest...

 

[boogabooga]

Its how the saying goes:

I'm shocked but not surprised.

 

[Eraser]

From Rogozin's Twitter:

The only way to deal with the accident rate - consistent implementation of decisions already taken on the reform of the space industry

Well, I hope this "implementation of decisions" does not become as fruitless as his boss Putin's eternal "fight against corruption".

 

[Urwumpe]

From Rogozin's Twitter:

Well, I hope this "implementation of decisions" does not become as fruitless as his boss Putin's eternal "fight against corruption".

AFAIR, the decisions had been about concentrating and nationalizing the space flight industry and create a new job position for a Putin buddy, instead of really looking at the problems in processes, that once worked more or less well during soviet and early Russian times (1990-2000), and now fail.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/26/us-russia-space-idUSBRE9BP02S20131226

 

[Cosmic Penguin]

The facts are becoming clearer....

According to Roscosmos chief Oleg Ostapenko, the 3rd stage engine failed at T+545 seconds, when the stage was flying over China at a velocity of 7 km/s at about 160 km altitude. However before that, one of the 4 vernier engines (which share the turbopumps of the main engine) shows signs of failure 20 seconds before.

Despite Ostapenko saying that there shouldn't be any debris falling from the sky, it did happen - residents in northern Heilongjiang province of NE China saw fireballs falling from the skies and objects dropping on to the ground at about 6 am LT, at the right time and position to be in connection with this accident. One of the objects found is a spherical tank with a skirt on the outside with sawtooths - which might be one of the fuel tanks of the doomed satellite. :uhh:

 

[N_Molson]

This is going to work just fine

Oops... I jinxed it... :embarrassed:

However before that, one of the 4 vernier engines (which share the turbopumps of the main engine) shows signs of failure 20 seconds before.

Something with the turbopump then. Never heard of a Vernier failing ? Or in the 50's / early 60's...

It seems that as soon as the launch campaign is performed by Khrunichev only and not ILS things go wrong... Yes, definitively a problem of workforce training and insufficient Q&A level... Other russian launch vehicles branches work very well, but that one... just doesn't. Well its not even the launch vehicle which is a well-proven design, its the manufacturing and the preparation of the launch campaign. :shrug:

BTW, I envy those Chinese peasants that got hypergolic propellant tanks in their fields (and that probably have no idea of their potential lethality)... :shifty:

 

[ISProgram]

Well, ITAR went out the window. This is just another [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelsat_708"]Intelsat 708[/ame] (with a little less drama)...

To sum up the Proton at this point: somewhat reliable rocket that uses toxic propellants...and will fail catastrophically whenever given the opportunity (like other rockets). Unfortunate that it HAS a lot more opportunities to do so than other rockets... :lol:

 

[boogabooga]

Well, ITAR went out the window. This is just another Intelsat 708 (with a little less drama)...

Wait, what? It wasn't a U.S. satellite.