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Russian Rocket Proton-M Crashes At Launch

Posted by timothy on from the up-is-a-hard-direction dept.

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."

10 of 145 comments (clear)

  1. probably... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...because the rocket was using GLONASS for navigation instead of GPS.

    1. Re:probably... by MightyYar · · Score: 4, Funny

      Normally AC first post comments are throwaways, but the image of a rocket trying to follow the navigation satellites in its nose made me giggle...

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    2. Re:probably... by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Protons have historically been highly reliable. A mishap like this happens every now and then to any launcher.

      This was the 387th Proton launch. A quick check, and I find that 36 of them have failed (including this latest one), plus three or four "partial failures" (they got into the wrong orbit, but were still usable).

      So Proton has a 9.3% failure rate, which is still much more reliable than Shuttle's 1.5% failure rate.

      Oh, wait....

      Note, for those who would like to insist that Proton failures were common in the early days, but very rare once they got the bugs out, that Proton failed once in each of 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013.

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
    3. Re:probably... by RubberDuckie · · Score: 3, Informative

      In the words of the immortal Foghorn Leghorn: "That's a joke, ah say, that's a joke, son."

    4. Re:probably... by Ecuador · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Eh, you are comparing man-rated (multiple times the cost, built specifically for 100% reliability) with cargo-only rockets (built for price/performance, where price actually includes failures).
      There is simply no comparison. For Proton to still be in use it is obviously reliable enough that its cost including insurance for cargo is competitive. The space shuttle on the other had a much larger than acceptable failure rate.
      Hey, get in this "bus", there is only 1.5% chance you will blow up!
      Way, way too much and all because of politics basically, it was not really an engineering choice to make the boosters far away and move them disassembled or to fly in temperatures dangerous for the O-rings etc.

      --
      Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
  2. Dashcam? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I want to see the dashcam footage!

    1. Re:Dashcam? by Ashenkase · · Score: 4, Informative

      Here you go... kinda... Proton Failure

  3. No Causalities by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    There were no causalities, but evacuation of personnel was ordered because of toxic rocket fuel fumes

    Must have been a pretty big explosion to break the laws of space time like that.

  4. This looks like gross error by PseudoCoder · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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."
  5. Re:GNSS by heypete · · Score: 5, Informative

    According to the wikipedia, GLONASS has complete global coverage and is fully operational.

    I have a GPS/GLONASS receiver and it certainly seems to have comparable coverage to GPS everywhere I've been in the last few years. Accuracy using both GPS and GLONASS, particularly when both are augmented by EGNOS, is quite good (on the order of 2-5 meters).

    The satellites they were launching on this rocket were the GLONASS-M type, which was designed in 2001, and were not part of the new GLONASS-K series.

    While certainly expensive and troublesome, I don't really see how this incident would set GLONASS back by years. /looking forward to Galileo and modernized GPS as well.