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Russian Rocket Proton-M Crashes At Launch
First time accepted submitter Jade_Wayfarer writes "Today, at 02:38 UTC (08:38 local time), Russian rocket Proton-M crashed after only several seconds of flight. Proton-M was carrying 3 GLONASS-M satellites of the ill-fated Russian navigational system. There were no causalities, but evacuation of personnel was ordered because of toxic rocket fuel fumes. Video of the event can be found here."
...because the rocket was using GLONASS for navigation instead of GPS.
The video shows a rocket behaving just like mine on Kerbal Space Program.
Maybe the design is exactly the same.
I want to see the dashcam footage!
Where are the reliable rockets coming and going like London buses?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I heard that the rocket was also carrying Edward Snowdens political asylum request.
Must have been a pretty big explosion to break the laws of space time like that.
Oh come on, guys, again? It's not like this is rocket scie... oh, wait, yes it is.
Easy jokes aside, this is becoming a disturbing pattern. The Proton rocket has been launched how many times? 50? 100? It's supposed to be a rock-solid system at this point - the most reliable commercial launch vehicle available. How many launch failures is this in the last year? Someone down in the QA department must be sleeping on the job, or being bought off. Have they been making unwarrented component or material substitutions? Is there deliberate sabotage at work? Are they just getting lazy and cheap?
Someone has to say it. It looks like unburnt fuel and the smoke would indicate a lack of oxidizer. So, the fuel mix was off.
The problem was that the GLON part designed by aeronautical engineers didn't kick in soon enough to counterbalance the part pushed on the project by the space bureaucracy.
For a system that's been flying since 2001 with upgrades, it's very troubling to have several doomed flights like this in a very short period of time. Those control divergences so early in the flight suggest either a bad sensor or a mechanical failure in the control links. At first glance it looks like the gains were appropriate to at least correct the initial divergence. If it was mechanical failure it makes me wonder what happened to the days when the Russians overbuilt everything at the expense of sub-optimal performance? Maybe they're just a bit too ambitious with all the advances, upgrades and variations in such a short period of time. Their earlier launch failed to reach orbit because they used outdated fueling data on a new vehicle.
"Now, I doubt any of you would prefer a rolled up newspaper as a weapon against a dictator or a criminal intruder."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSTVkkDv30k&feature=player_embedded
Needed to install the SAS module and press t to turn it on prior to launch.
Common, thats still an improvement over the North Korean model ...
I, for one, welcome our new laws of physics defying, rocket crashing overlords.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtahqXjFcxU
That's really too bad. I was looking forward to GLONASS reliably augmenting GPS and improving global GNSS coverage and accuracy. This will set back GLONASS for years. Looks like Galileo and BDS are the next best hopes.
"Their Swords Into Plowshares..." - United Nations (for pics see: https://www.google.com/search?q=united+nations+plowshares&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&authuser=0&ei=g97SUYC_J8Pk0QHejIFI&biw=1366&bih=617&sei=h97SUa6aKsm00AGvjYGQAg#imgdii=_)
No, I guess they just thought it was a cool name or something.
No one is actually using nuclear powered rockets. There has been plenty of projects in the past but they were all cancelled sooner or later.
But there could be plenty of other dangerous stuff aboard that rocket and I have no idea what might have been in the satellites.
No word yet on how they're going to pay off Kazakhstan for littering their country with incredibly lethal hydrazine yet again.
No, and the Poseidon missile is not powered by a Greek deity, either. The Proton series has been Russia's standard heavy-duty space launcher for close on fifty years.
After hacking in to the controls, NSA missed trying to take out Snowden.
The summary clearly states there were no causalities.
Although SpaceX's Falcon 9 is, in fact, carried by nine falcons.
sic transit gloria mundi
this is probably going to help ESA, ULA's atlas/delta and SpaceX. However, SpaceX needs to make their new F9 V1.1 and FH launch successful. Assuming that it is, then you can bet on it that a number of companies will throw in with SpaceX.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Does anyone know whether or not there was a range safety officer monitoring this launch? From the video, it's pretty clear early on that this booster is in trouble, and since it's unmanned it seems like it would be better to detonate the Proton before it impacts the earth.
Without knowing the procedures and capabilities it's hard to know why the flight was not terminated sooner. Any Slashdotters with knowledge of Russian launch safety protocols?
In Soviet Russia, humans rocket from launch pad!
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
TFS said "There were no causalities,"
You would think that we could at least wait a week or two for the assessment teams to tell us if they'd found some causalities. Now, "casualties," OTOH...
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
But there could be plenty of other dangerous stuff aboard that rocket and I have no idea what might have been in the satellites.
Nonsense. Hydrazine is wonderful stuff, and works as a cure-all tonic, guaranteed to make your worries no longer of concern!
The video clearly shows that the payload was successfully inserted into a low orbit before the rocket broke up on reentry.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
Why would a Russian rocket have Mercedes components? And, yes, I am aware that German manufacturers outsource to Russia. Surplus SCADA chips, maybe?
I'd prefer this one : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zl12dXYcUTo It seems that video was captured by engineers who prepared rocket to launch (voices in Russian)
You seem to be confused, talking about the U.S. space program being in a death spiral - when we have working robots on Mars, and companies like SpaceX building truly next-gen space capability.
Why should you consider a countries space capability solely on government programs?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The best video of the failure I have found:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orOcOahNazk
Others good videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dH3bY6-ObGg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSTVkkDv30k
I assumed that was the payload being ejected in order to try and save it. Was is really just structural failure?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
No, that's a misconception. Rather, they attach VR goggles to nine falcons and throw them each into one of nine wind tunnels. The wind tunnels are designed to in real-time the aerodynamic forces on the rocket. The falcon's control movements are averaged and used to steer the rocket.
"...Their Swords Into Plowshares..." - United Nations (for pics see: pics)
Most likely caused by a tourist that couldn't resist the temptation seeing a button marked "Do not press".
yes, it was entirely composed of nuclei surrounded by electron clouds often shared between more than one. it also contained *chemicals*
Well, given that they were Glonass birds, they have Cesium clocks (three of them, I think), which contain a pretty small amount of Cs, a bunch of electronics, solar arrays and NiH2 batteries.
Why was there no self-destruct happening?
Where was the guy with his finger on the "press here to explode rocket" button?
bash$
Sounds like the Russian employ the same quality system that Microsoft does -- 'good enuf' (fix only if 10000 people complain) and no refunds.
Sounds like at least the payload was no 'unique' satelite (rather were clones they are making many of so that the whole thing wont be down the tubes by this one failure)
I always thought Proton disintegration meant something different.
-- 29A the number of the Beast
a rocket containing the first of its kind navigation satellites is launched SuccessKidFully. Making India only the 6th country with the capability.