FAILURE: Proton-M/DM-03 with 3xGlonass-M - July 2, 2013

[asmi]

Here's my list of Proton failures up to the end of 2012.  The last Proton phase of flight failure was in 2007.  There were several second and third stage failures during the 1990s.  The last failure during the first stage burn may have been in 1982.
http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/profail.txt
http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/protsum.txt

 - Ed Kyle

I suppose that I phrased it wrong. What I was going to say, due to its' flight history, it is highly unlikely that the failure is cause by design deficiencies. More like manufacturing/QA issue, which means that it would probably get back to flight fairly quickly.

[Nickolai]

Why no cut-engine command?

Please read the thread before replying - this has been mentioned several times. before 45 seconds, the thrust termination is not active to prevent damage to the launch pad.

Yes, sorry. No cut engine command before 45 seconds would be common sense...

No, inhibiting engine cutoff before 45 seconds is not common sense. It's a design decision, arguably a good one, but not one that will always achieve the desired result.

[JimOman]

Just for reference:

The remaining Proton launches on schedule for this year are:

19 July- with Astra 2E
14 August- Sirius FM-6
11 December- Nauka !!!!!

Obviously these dates will slip. 
Many others next year are TBD.

Jim

[Moe Grills]

Here's my list of Proton failures up to the end of 2012.  The last Proton phase of flight failure was in 2007.  There were several second and third stage failures during the 1990s.  The last failure during the first stage burn may have been in 1982.
http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/profail.txt
http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/protsum.txt

 - Ed Kyle

I suppose that I phrased it wrong. What I was going to say, due to its' flight history, it is highly unlikely that the failure is cause by design deficiencies. More like manufacturing/QA issue, which means that it would probably get back to flight fairly quickly.

    I don't think we should be surprised that a very powerful and large 'machine' with (a million parts and counting?) should fail every
so often. You are not going to get 100 percent reliability with any
complex manmade device over a period of many decades.

[asmi]

No, inhibiting engine cutoff before 45 seconds is not common sense. It's a design decision, arguably a good one, but not one that will always achieve the desired result.

I guess it depends on what kind of result would you want to get. In case of Baikonur there is city nearby, so it would be logical to protect it by ensuring rocket makes it away from the city into steppes where it far less likely to damage anything or hurt anybody. Plus the pad itself is very expensive structure designed to withstand tremendous loads (remember we're talking about around 1000 metric tons of thrust at liftoff), so it makes economic sence to protect it as well as in interests of time (construction is very time-consuming).

[docmordrid]

New York Times has an article that pretty much focusses on the fuel safety issues, also noting concerns about crews etc.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/03/world/asia/russian-rocket-crashes-in-kazakhstan.html?_r=1&

[Nickolai]

Source information: apparently one of the six 1st stage engines went down in the first seconds of the flight.

This is no Falcon 9....

EDIT: another source saying that this is impossible.... 

I'm taking a stab at this, but judging from this post: http://novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/forum/messages/forum12/topic12414/message1091766/#message1091766

I think АВД probably stands for something like Аварийного Выключения Двигателя, "Emergency engine shutdown." Judging from other sources it appears as though the command was issued, but further logic downstream knew to inhibit it based on the 45 seconds rule.

Kind of similar to STS-51F which suffered an engine problem with engine #1 upon ignition, and then sent shutdown commands to all engines. Engine #3 got the shutdown command before it even started up, so it didn't issue an acknowledgement that it has shut down, causing confusion in the control room.

[DaveS]

Kind of similar to STS-51F which suffered an engine problem with engine #1 upon ignition, and then sent shutdown commands to all engines. Engine #3 got the shutdown command before it even started up, so it didn't issue an acknowledgement that it has shut down, causing confusion in the control room.

What you're describing is not STS-51F but STS-41D, the first flight of Discovery.

And the order was the reverse: It was engine 1 that had not yet ignited at the time of the RSLS abort.

STS-41D RSLS abort can be viewed here:

[Nickolai]

Kind of similar to STS-51F which suffered an engine problem with engine #1 upon ignition, and then sent shutdown commands to all engines. Engine #3 got the shutdown command before it even started up, so it didn't issue an acknowledgement that it has shut down, causing confusion in the control room.

What you're describing is not STS-51F but STS-41D, the first flight of Discovery.

And the order was the reverse: It was engine 1 that had not yet ignited at the time of the RSLS abort.

Ah, thanks for the correction!

[jumpjack]

Could it be a language thing?

This HAS to be a typo. Otherwise there is an implication here something illicit was onboard.

When Chelyabinsk meteorite fell down, "broken glasses (of windows)" magically became "meteorite crystals". :-)

Has this amzingly clear video been posted? (HD 1080!)

[mheney]

The sound lags the image by about 10 seconds - so 2 miles away.  Closer than I'd like to be when the toxic cloud starts dispersing ...

[Rusty Adding Machine]

I found yet another view (though not quite as good, I think) via http://novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/forum/messages/forum12/topic12414/message1092389/#message1092389

[gospacex]

No, inhibiting engine cutoff before 45 seconds is not common sense. It's a design decision, arguably a good one, but not one that will always achieve the desired result.

I guess it depends on what kind of result would you want to get. In case of Baikonur there is city nearby, so it would be logical to protect it by ensuring rocket makes it away from the city into steppes where it far less likely to damage anything or hurt anybody. Plus the pad itself is very expensive structure designed to withstand tremendous loads (remember we're talking about around 1000 metric tons of thrust at liftoff), so it makes economic sence to protect it as well as in interests of time (construction is very time-consuming).

Allowing uncontrolled LV to fly and impact in semi-random location is better than make it crash back onto the pad, but it is still very dangerous.

Do what US launchers do - destroy failed LV in flight.

[iamlucky13]

This is no Falcon 9....

Any all-liquid rocket, including Falcon 9, would fail in this fashion if it suffered an engine failure right off the pad.  SpaceX has unreleased video of one of its rockets doing something similar.

That said, I'm not yet convinced that this was a propulsion failure.  I see six engines burning on a rocket that is suffering some type of control problem.  It is, however, impossible to say for sure based only on the available video.

 - Ed Kyle

Please clarify. I know you don't mean a secret, failed Falcon 9 launch. Are you referring to Falcon 1, Flight 1?

Hopefully I can ask a straight forward question without derailing the thread:

With regards to Falcon 9, did not Musk claim the Falcon 9 has sufficient thrust and gimbal margin to continue in-control flight even if it lost an engine at liftoff?

Anyways, after watching the Proton video a couple times, my suspicion of an engine failure has also waned substantially.

The main factor I previously focused on was the off-angle and apparently low velocity of the brown smoke, but knowing now that the brown exhaust is normal, on further review I believe the off angle is simply due to the extreme angle of attack of the rocket after pitching over.

[iamlucky13]

No, inhibiting engine cutoff before 45 seconds is not common sense. It's a design decision, arguably a good one, but not one that will always achieve the desired result.

I guess it depends on what kind of result would you want to get. In case of Baikonur there is city nearby, so it would be logical to protect it by ensuring rocket makes it away from the city into steppes where it far less likely to damage anything or hurt anybody.

That would actually be a questionable strategy. Assuming you have no control, the rocket can hypothetically go anywhere, so the longer you let it burn, the closer it presumably can get to Baikonur.

However, if 45 seconds is accurate, I strongly suspect it is a compromise between increasing the theoretical error radius, and therefore reducing statistical risk for staff at the pads and surrounding facilities, without it being possible to reach Baikonur.

On the map it looks like about 35 km from Baikonur to the pads, with almost nothing in between.

I don't have Proton data, but Shuttle data is easier to find (STS-121, STS-116) - at 45 seconds, the shuttle is just over 5 km downrange from the pad, and 6 km up, moving about 350 m/s.

Rough estimate from that point, assuming I did my math right, with a 45 degree velocity vector, is total downrange distance of 21.5 km.

Proton no doubt accelerates faster than the shuttle, however, so I can't say for certain it can't possibly reach Baikonur after 45 seconds of thrust, but I suspect not.

[robertross]

Has this amzingly clear video been posted? (HD 1080!)

WOW! And that delayed sound of the burn, hitting the ground, then quiet, then BAM! That will wake you up.

Really good quality. You can really see the engines gimballing to correct. You can also see how far some debris was thrown by the trails of fuming propellant.

Thanks

[rickl]

That is a great video.  The delayed explosion reminded me of the Chelyabinsk videos.

And the flight itself is reminiscent of the famous Juno II failure on July 16, 1959.  A larger vehicle and a little more altitude.

(I'd like to link it but I only saw two versions on YouTube.  One had annoying narration and the other was taken from a Spacecraft Films DVD, so I don't know if there are copyright issues.  But most of you know the one I mean.)

[Lee Jay]

Really good quality. You can really see the engines gimballing to correct.

I've been wondering since the event if you can really see gimballing in these various videos.  With the vehicle rolling like crazy, I'm not entirely sure that the entire plume isn't just off to one side, and that side is changing as the vehicle rolls.  But it's really hard to tell.

[Hunt101]

I've heard from an ILS friend they think it was a complete failure of one engine's gimbal system which moved to full angle outboard, resulting in the other engine nozzles moving to counter, which resulted in an over reaction.

[Galactic Penguin SST]

I've heard from an ILS friend they think it was a complete failure of one engine's gimbal system which moved to full angle outboard, resulting in the other engine nozzles moving to counter, which resulted in an over reaction.

There's another Russian source saying that the rocket lifted off 0.4 seconds earlier than it should have (probably with some engines not yet reaching full thrust), engine compartment temperature reaching 1200 degrees Celsius (3 times the usual limit) and eventually one of the engines failing at T+4 seconds. Looks like it could have been easily an erroneous lift off command that caused the premature release of the rocket, causing one of the engines turned on a fraction earlier to catch fire and burned through the control system cables. Hmm......