Proton Upper Stage Misfire Puts Satellites in Wrong Orbits
After seven months of successes, the Russian launch industry has suffered another setback when a malfunctioning Breeze M upper stage sent a pair of Russian and Indonesian communications satellites into the wrong orbit. ITAR-TASS reports that “the upper stage engine unit worked for only seven seconds instead of planned 18 minutes and five seconds, and the satellites were not put into the planned orbits.”
The nation experienced a string of launch failures from late 2010 to Dec. 23, 2011. The ITAR-TASS story quotes former Roscosmos head Anatoly Perminov, who was fired over the failures, as saying the problem is worse now because of the space agency abolished the department in charge of overseeing launch vehicles and upper stages. This makes it more difficult to identify those responsible for failures.
A press release from ILS explains the latest mishap.
RESTON, Virg. (ILS PR) — On 7 August at 1:32 a.m. local time, a Proton Breeze M vehicle carrying the Express MD2 and Telkom 3 satellites launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The Proton M launch vehicle performed nominally, however, the Orbital Unit (OU), comprised of the Breeze M upper stage and the two spacecraft, did not properly reach its transfer orbit and was placed into an off-nominal intermediate orbit. The Aerospace Defense and Roscosmos, are currently monitoring the OU and efforts are now underway to establish contact with the Express MD2 and Telkom 3 satellites.
An investigation into the anomaly began immediately. A Russian State Commission of inquiry has been established and is in the process of determining the reasons for the anomaly. ILS will release details when data become available. While this was a Russian Federal mission, ILS will form its own Failure Review Oversight Board (FROB) in parallel with the Russian State Commission. The FROB will review the commission’s final report and corrective action plan, in accordance with U.S. and Russian government export control regulations.
ILS remains committed to providing reliable, timely launch services for all its customers. To this end, ILS will work diligently with its partner Khrunichev to return Proton to flight as soon as possible.
Further updates will be provided on the investigation as they become available.
5 responses to “Proton Upper Stage Misfire Puts Satellites in Wrong Orbits”
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Wasn’t Phobos-Grunt’s transfer stage also based on the Breeze M upper stage?
After Indonesia collects it’s insurance for the lost payloads, they should call SpaceX for it’s next launch.
Marcus: No, it was based on Fregat, see: http://www.russianspaceweb….
I wonder if it would be possible to re-establish contact with the stage and get it to complete it’s firing? My first understanding was that they had fallen back to Earth but if they’re still in orbit it might be possible to save them.
It’s very unfortunate, however, that this failure had to happen, especially after so many months without a failure. It’s a sign of deteriorating conditions not only in the Russian aerospace industry but in the economy as a whole, they’re stagnating, and I wonder how much further the current regime can go.
Thanks for the information Nickolai, guess I mixed a few things up.
Yes it really is very unfortunate. But I think it isn’t only the situation in Russia. The worldwide economy still faces a lot of troubles, mostly because of that stupid dept crisis here in Europe. It’s completely off-topic but I think all this “we give you more money of you achieve your goals to tighten the government budget” (speaking of Greece, but applies to any country) isn’t working a bit. How much has this cost so far? I’m not only talking about direct payments, but what has been lost worldwide due to the recession? Seriously, if the IMF, ECB, etc would have said “well screw it, we won’t see the money anyway, fix your budget and you won’t have to repay everything” I guess the situation would have been a lot better by now…
/rant
Nick, the RB isn’t goingto work again, if there’s a leak or pluggage of the helium circuit, as was alleged. Secondly, it’s pointless, because satellites are separated (NORAD tracks 4 objects). And they don’t have apogee engines. There was talk about starting building self-driving payloads like almost the whole world does (except the birds delivered direct by Delta IV-H).