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."

Comments

Nature of the Failure Mode

[ytene]

There is a weird statement in the original coverage from Ars. Having initially explained that the reason for the failure was due to an incorrect configuration setting, the quote then goes on to show where Ars states, "As the country's heritage rockets and upper stages continue to age, the concern is that the failure rate will increase."

But the nature of this specific failure mode has absolutely nothing to do with the age of the rockets or stages, but was due instead to one or more lapses in pre-flight checks of the configuration parameters for the launch. We don't even know for sure if the part which failed (the Fregat Upper Stage) was set by the launch agency directly, or the satellite manufacturer.

In a similar way, the comments also imply that the vehicles themselves age in some way - despite the fact that the cost and complexity of them means that they are literally custom-made for each launch. They are certainly not left languishing "on the shelf" for months or years before use.

Don't get me wrong, any launch failure is unwanted and to be avoided at all costs - regardless of the nationality or company involved. But in this case, I'm not sure the coverage reflects reality.

Re:Nature of the Failure Mode

[rmdingler]

Early reporting of disasters is always rife with inaccuracy, and someone may have wanted to jump the facts with some speculation about the malfunction.

The rocket was programmed to orient from the old spaceport in Baikonur, rather than it's launch from the new Vostochny cosmodrome. Some poor fellow's wearing a massive face palm right now.