Slashdot Mirror
Russian Rocket Crashes In Siberia
An anonymous reader writes: A Russian Proton-M rocket carrying a Mexican satellite broke down shortly after launch and crashed in Siberia. Russian space agency Roscosmos is investigating the incident, but the cause is not yet known. In the video, the rocket appeared to sputter and stop providing thrust when the third-stage engine unexpectedly switched off. Communications were lost with the rocket before that happened. This comes just a couple weeks after Russia experienced another high profile rocket failure when its cargo ship bound for the International Space Station failed to reach a high enough orbit and began spinning out of control. Russia's Proton family of rockets has been in use since the 1960s, though the current Proton-M incarnation was first flown in 2001.
The GOP continues to gut funding for development of manned private space launch, but will continue to pour money into the SLS, AND having Russia do the manned launches. Fucking insane
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
they need a Russian porn director.
You'd think Russia, precisely because of its long history of space "exploration", would have had tremendous "benefits" and "spinoffs" by now?
For decades launching these rockets was not a problem for Russia. However, since the Western embargo they had several problems with their rockets on their own launch site, while they had no problem in human space flight and when starting in Kourou, French Guiana. However, the Soyuz-2 used in French Guiana is a completely different rocket than the Proton-M which just had that accident.
All of these payloads are insured. The reinsurance companies can't be too happy though...oh well, money goes in, money goes out.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
In Soviet Russia Rocket Sputniks you!
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
may be it's time to start using ISRO for sattelite launches... Seems cheap and reliable..
Mexican satellite... Russian rockets... all made with parts from Taiwan!
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
In Soviet Russia, insurance company pays you!
Mexico has, er, "had" a satelite?? I found that surprising.
I was surprised too and wondered why they just didn't contract out to buy time on someone else's satellite since a billion dollars over the 15 year projected lifetime of the satellites will buy a lot of satellite time. Turns out it's for "National Security Needs", which I guess means they don't trust anyone else to provide service, though if the USA reneges on a deal to provide national security satellite services to them, Mexico has far bigger problems to worry about.
The NSA is going to intercept their data whether they have their own satellite or not -- it was bought from Boeing, so the NSA will certainly have full access to the Satellite during construction.
http://space.skyrocket.de/doc_...
That was obviously not 3rd stage but the 1st one which failed. The incident occurred just under 2 minutes of flight, right about the time where the first stage burns out and the second stage ignites. The article mentions that the satellite with the third stage would have crashed somewhere in Siberia, not that the 3rd stage has malfunctioned. The 3rd stage motor is the one that provides the final boost and orbital corrections and probably didn't even ignite yet in this accident.
Learn to read and use common sense, folks!
Why, they have 7 already, one fewer than Norway and and the same number as Denmark. They have the 15th largest GDP in the world, roughly the same as Australia's. The US has 10X the GDP and 200X the number of satellites so we spend a much higher percentage of GDP on satellites. The US has a sense of Mexico being a god awful poor 3rd world country mostly due to it's proximity. We unfavorably compare it directly to our own economy where as other countries further away have more of a 'must be better' mysterious sense.
Sure it's 66th in per capita GDP but that doesn't mean they as a nation they can't afford more modern technologies, particularly now that the cost is so low.
Your fuel filter is so piss poor that it won't trap iron filings?
Why, they have 7 already, one fewer than Norway and and the same number as Denmark. They have the 15th largest GDP in the world, roughly the same as Australia's. The US has 10X the GDP and 200X the number of satellites so we spend a much higher percentage of GDP on satellites. The US has a sense of Mexico being a god awful poor 3rd world country mostly due to it's proximity. We unfavorably compare it directly to our own economy where as other countries further away have more of a 'must be better' mysterious sense.
Sure it's 66th in per capita GDP but that doesn't mean they as a nation they can't afford more modern technologies, particularly now that the cost is so low.
Ah, well that explains the flood of U.S. citizens illegally streaming into Mexico in search of a better life.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Where's the obligatory dash-cam video?
Have gnu, will travel.
That was a bit odd. I'd guess a planet though that's a heck of a lucky image. It may also have been a monitoring plane. The camera is likely tracking left to right fairly quickly so a relatively stationary object will appear to track right to left equally quickly. It only appears to get close in 2 dimensions, it's hard to say how close the object was along the viewing axis.
That video cuts out long before the actual failure. There were no cameras on it by the time it failed. The end of the video is showing the stage 1 to stage 2 transfer.
Ah, well that explains the flood of U.S. citizens illegally streaming into Mexico in search of a better life.
It is more than a trickle. Most 'illegals' come down and then just overstay. Heh, but U.S. citizens are outnumbered by the Italians.
Mexico has, er, "had" a satelite?? I found that surprising.
It refused to learn English and insisted on listening to accordion polkas.
(||) Nehmo (||)
"It's a very sobering feeling to be up in space and realize that one's safety factor was determined by the lowest bidder on a government contract."
it was more swarf than filings-grade, the fuel filter was shredded. Lab-grade filings will slime in the filter and simply block it, forcing any fuel that does get past to do so by bypassing the screen. Either way, such particulate contamination will get into the entire fuel system eventually and *can* blow the valves.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel