Launch News (FAILURE) Progress M-12M, Soyuz-U, August 24, 2011

[Wishbone]

Update: search for culprits has begun, the investigation commission is headed by Anatoly S. Koroteev, and a standing working group with reps from Keldysh Centre, and TsNIIMash will check all stages of launcher, upper stage and spacecraft production. Too bad it takes an umpteenth failure to get things going. Oh, and there is also a manned spaceflight working group to check all launchers, Progresses and Soyuzes for quality defects.

To re-cap, Koroteev's commission will look for defects in this particular accident, manned spaceflight working group will check goodies, and the standing working group will check production processes.

Sources: http://www.roscosmos.ru/main.php?id=2&nid=17772&lang=ru, http://www.roscosmos.ru/main.php?id=2&nid=17770&lang=ru, and
http://www.roscosmos.ru/main.php?id=2&nid=17771&lang=ru

 

[SiberianTiger]

http://ria.ru/science/20110825/423919622.html

The search for debris in the assumed Progress impact zone in Altai Republic was not successful. Works are suspended to be resumed in the morning.

A representative of the local police told RIA Novosti that a possibility is not ruled out that nothing will be found at all, because the rocket debris might completely disintegrate in mid-air.

Or they are looking in a wrong place. It's sad that no one ever tracks position of rockets launches from Baikonur. Maybe we should ask PLAAF for their last radar readings to find the impact point coordinates? :facepalm:

 

[Cosmic Penguin]

http://ria.ru/science/20110825/423919622.html



Or they are looking in a wrong place. It's sad that no one ever tracks position of rockets launches from Baikonur. Maybe we should ask PLAAF for their last radar readings to find the impact point coordinates? :facepalm:

That's news to me! Surely the Russians have down-range tracking stations and radars on the busiest launch corridor in southern Siberia?

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This is probably very unimportant for now, but here're the official launch videos:

Sad to think that within five minutes of the recorded controllers' calm reports, their feeling would turn upside down...

 

[T.Neo]

It's sad that no one ever tracks position of rockets launches from Baikonur.

Wait what!?

Seriously? That's just... kind of careless, no? :uhh:

 

[SiberianTiger]

Wait what!?

Seriously? That's just... kind of careless, no? :uhh:

There's a tracking through chain of stations that receive the rocket's telemetry downlink, but I doubt that radar tracking is available far downrange.

 

[Wishbone]

Mneh, shouldn't the PVO hone their skills or something - I mean, there goes a thing with known RCS through one's airspace... And if I recall correctly, there were cases when the Space Forces turned to the air defense guys for leads.

EDIT: And one more PLEEAAASE, please. Having onboard cameras is still considered a luxury. While telemetry + forensics is good, telemetry+forensics+footage is better (in my clueless uneducated humble opinion).

 

[garyw]

There's a tracking through chain of stations that receive the rocket's telemetry downlink, but I doubt that radar tracking is available far downrange.

There was a comment made that at the moment of the problem the rocket was moving out of range of ground stations so the telemtry was 'ratty'. As I understand it (and I may be wrong) there is a gap between ground stations at that 325 second mark.

 

[Urwumpe]

Just look here, there is really a small gap in the east, where the tracking stations become more sparse.

http://suzymchale.com/ruspace/tracking.html

 

[Wishbone]

Ummm... We need Siberian Tiger to tell us what he sees, 'cause I see Lake Baikal and you see a gap.

 

[SiberianTiger]

^^^ :lol:

The closest tracking station should be Barnaul at the moment. According to Suzy's information, they provide:

Zarya/Zvezda telemetry, Zvezda VHF-1/2 voice, state vector determination, television

But that's for the ISS. I'm not sure what exactly do they do to support rocket launches.

Anti-Aircraft Defence might have too "short-sighted" radar to track ballistic targets. Mind, I'm a complete noob in the matter, though, so the situation can be reverse. I think the Anti-Ballistic Defence radars might be the best pick for the job, but none looks inside Russian territory (that Balkhash site you can notice is reportedly defunct):

 

[SiberianTiger]

Interesting is that Block A (core stage) impact point at 87.13E, 50.83N is much closer to the reported crash site, just 95 km off to the right.

It turns out, the actual Block A impact zone is 230 km closer to what we get from Galactic Penguin's simulation and is defined as:

Zone #306
Center 50º 52' 00" N, 83º 00' 00" E

Zone #307
Center 50º 54' 00" N, 83º 16' 00" E

So the shutdown at T+325 is likely to provide for ending up in Altai.

 

[Urwumpe]

The stations are the same, you usually just use different antennas for tracking launches, compared to tracking spacecraft.

 

[N_Molson]

"Who wants to settle and build an isba in the middle of nowhere, with a big antenna to track rocket launches ?"

:tumbleweed:

:lol:

 

[SiberianTiger]

"Who wants to settle and build an isba in the middle of nowhere, with a big antenna to track rocket launches ?"

:tumbleweed:

Sadly enough, I've already sold my "isba" in Barnaul. I had a great view of the ascent trajectory from my balcony then - a great place to install an antenna! :thumbup:

An article in German in Der Spiegel online: "Sojus"-Unfall sturzt Raumfahrt in die Krise

Few things to note:

Das Aggregat der Herstellerfirma Lawotschkin galt bislang als ausgesprochen zuverlässig.

That's incorrect, Lavochkin firm has nothing to do with it. The RD-0110 is a product of Voronezh Design Bureau for Chemical Automatics, which is a part of Khrunichev holding.

Der Chef des Deutschen Zentrums für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR) fordert im Gespräch mit SPIEGEL ONLINE eine internationale Untersuchung des Vorfalls. "Das kann man nicht allein den Russen überlassen", sagt Johann-Dietrich Wörner. Es müsse aufgeklärt werden, was genau mit der Oberstufe der "Sojus"-Rakete passiert sei. "Wir müssen herausfinden, ob es womöglich einen Systemfehler gab", so Wörner.

Was "Galileo" angeht, müsse man über eine Änderung des Zeitplans nachdenken: "Wir werden nicht einfach starten, ohne dass wir ein klares Ergebnis haben, wo der Fehler lag", sagt Wörner. Dass die "Sojus" lange Jahre ohne Probleme geflogen ist, weiß auch der DLR-Chef. Wenn es nun aber einen systemischen Fehler gäbe, zum Beispiel durch Qualitätsprobleme bei Zulieferfirmen, dann könnten aber weitere "Sojus"-Exemplare betroffen sein. Der aktuelle Vorfall zeige, dass "Systeme auch bei den Russen nicht beliebig sicher sind".

This is a call for international investigation of the problem, but I wonder, if there is a treaty conditions in place allowing European partners to really take part in one? Another question, what choice do they have if presence of a "systemic error" of sorts is confirmed?

 

[Wishbone]

International investigation? Like the one in Libya? Re: legal implications - I'll have to brush up space law, but each space nation is IIRC sovereign over anything it launches.

 

[SiberianTiger]

RD-0110's composition and function, by textbook information.

Principle diagram of liquid-fiel rocket engine RD-0110:

1 - Heat Exchange Unit
2 - Flow Control Valve
3 - Turbopump
4 - Ignitor
5 - Hot Gas Generator
6 - Stabilizer
7 - Fuel Valve
8 - Combustion Starter
9 - Ignitor
10 - Combustion Chamber
11 - Steering Nozzle
12 - Fulcrum Pin
13 - Evaporator Converter
14 - Fuel Valve
15 - Pressure Regulator
16 - Fuel

Ignition and Staging Timing Chart for Block I:

After reaching the set speed measured by integrating accelerometer, a GK2 command is issued to start up engine of Block I; after delay of 1.25 seconds a command to shut down engine of Core Block A is issued. Before that, capping pins of gyroscopes are blocked. One second after command to shut down Block A, a SEPARATION 2 command follows to allow voltage on explosive connectors between Block A and Block I. Block A begins trailing behind and pulls out the interunit assembly and connectors. Fuel tank of Block I is pressurized by cooled down Turbopump exhaust, Oxidizer tank is pressurized by evaporated Oxygen. 5 to 25 seconds after GK2, the Block I's tail section halves jettison, and at 6 seconds after GK2 capping pins of gyroscopes are reactivated.

Sources:
http://www.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=785625#785625
http://www.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=784937#784937

 

[Cosmic Penguin]

Just made a launch simulation with Nikita's Soyuz add-on, and as you can see with this playback of the launch on Google Earth, the reports of rocket debris in the Altai Republic would fit exactly with a shutdown of the third stage engine at T+325 seconds (I have the nominal crash site of the third stage and the payload at just south of Teletskoye Lake, and would roughly fit the description that the crash site is 40-50 kilometers from the village of Karakoksha).

Link

I have tried again with the launch simulation, after realizing the original targeted orbit was slightly off. This time I launched the rocket for the real targeted orbit (given as 193 X 245 km X 51.66 degrees), take manual control at the last second, shut down the third stage engine at T+ 325s, and self destruct when the rocket reached a height of 60 km. (For reference, when I shut down the engines, the ground speed was ~4450 m/s, the altitude was 200.5 km, and the attained orbit was ~-4750 X 200.7 km X 51.36 degrees)
And guess what, the crash site was about ~75 km from Bizhelbyk village! This is much better than my initial simulation, and after including the usual estimation errors (including that the time of separations of stages are several seconds off from real case scenarios), I would say this can nail down the story of what happened 50 hours ago. Now off to find the cause of the engine shut down...

Link

P.S. Had it been a successful launch, the astronauts would have just opened the hatch to it by now.... :facepalm:

P.P.S. Are there any amateur videos of the explosion at the Altai mountains available on the web?

 

[Orbinaut Pete]

Here's a description of the lost cargo items from the ISS On-Orbit Status Report for 24/08/11:

The flight manifest lists 257 cargo items for delivery to the ISS, including 161 Russian items (143 logistics cargo items, including Russian FCE for US crew [15 items] and Russian ECLSS equipment [20 items]), 18 cargo items for 13 experiments [Tipologiya, Poligen, Matryoshka-R, Kaskad, Konyugatsiya, BIF, Aril, Membrana, Aseptik, Vynoslivost, Test, OChB, and Plazmennyi Kristall-3 Plus]), and 86 International Partner's cargo items (71 NASA logistics cargo items, including limited-life and consumable items for USOS systems and provisions for Russian and US crewmembers [of these, 24 items belong to transit cargo, and 47 items may have been used on the ISS RS (Russian Segment)], 14 cargo items for 6 US experiments for conducting on the USOS, and one cargo item for a European experiment to be conducted on the USOS). The most critical loss was a number of Russian laptops loaded with new software (Vers. 8.05).

 

[Urwumpe]

This is a call for international investigation of the problem, but I wonder, if there is a treaty conditions in place allowing European partners to really take part in one? Another question, what choice do they have if presence of a "systemic error" of sorts is confirmed?

Not really, but as former employee of Wörner, I wouldn't expect realism from his side. He is pretty good in managing something to stagnation.

There is a treaty between Arianespace and Energia but this is about the Soyuz 2 family, not the Soyuz U.

 

[kuki5050]

My opinion

In my opinion ESA or JAXA should bulid a manned spacecraft which allow the changing or rescue the crew of ISS. I said that because the Russian Space Agency has suspended all planned Soyuz rocket take-offs after a disaster of Progress M12M, and NASA will not build a new ship because Obama has them cut off funds for the construction.