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A Programing Error Blasted 19 Russian Satellites Back Towards Earth (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes Ars Technica's report on Russia's failed attempt to launch 19 satellites into orbit on Tuesday:
Instead of boosting its payload, the Soyuz 2.1b rocket's Fregat upper stage fired in the wrong direction, sending the satellites on a suborbital trajectory instead, burning them up in Earth's atmosphere... According to normally reliable Russian Space Web, a programming error caused the Fregat upper stage, which is the spacecraft on top of the rocket that deploys satellites, to be unable to orient itself. Specifically, the site reports, the Fregat's flight control system did not have the correct settings for a mission launching from the country's new Vostochny cosmodrome. It evidently was still programmed for Baikonur, or one of Russia's other spaceports capable of launching the workhorse Soyuz vehicle. Essentially, then, after the Fregat vehicle separated from the Soyuz rocket, it was unable to find its correct orientation. Therefore, when the Fregat first fired its engines to boost the satellites into orbit, it was still trying to correct this orientation -- and was in fact aimed downward toward Earth.
Though the Fregat space tug has been in operation since the 1990s, this is its fourth failure -- all of which have happened within the last 8 years.
"In each of the cases, the satellite did not reach its desired orbit," reports Ars Technica, adding "As the country's heritage rockets and upper stages continue to age, the concern is that the failure rate will increase."
"In each of the cases, the satellite did not reach its desired orbit," reports Ars Technica, adding "As the country's heritage rockets and upper stages continue to age, the concern is that the failure rate will increase."
In USA everyone acts like the sky is falling.
In Soviet Russia the sky is actually falling!
Nineteen Russian satellites? Well, including the 12 American, the Canadian one, the Norwegian one, two from Sweden and the one from Germany that is...
The rocket was Russian, but the satellites that were riding on it were from various countries: http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/russian-rocket-launch-1.4422547 "The booster also carried 18 micro satellites built in Canada, Germany, Japan, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the United States."
Did my own research.
The third stage burned up reentering the atmosphere over the north Atlantic. The fireball was observed by at least one transatlantic commercial flight.
http://www.russianspaceweb.com...
See near bottom of page.