Proton-M Failure Reaction and Discussion Thread - July 2, 2013

[Gorizont]

As I remember correctly, the brown fluid is the oxidizer, which is "removed" to "rate down" one of the engines to turn the rocket vertically and bring it into a good position for the horizontal turn... and a good flightpath.

This is a normal procedure.

But as I see, the rocket swung after about 3 secounds, while this procedure was used.
I also think, one of the engine-exhausts had been moved to far from their normal limit and broke the auto-stabilising-funktion of the rocket.

greetings...
Soeren


edit:
Thanks Input (mod.)!
In this image one side of the plume seems to be smaller than the rest.

[Danderman]

As I remember correctly, the brown fluid is the oxisizer, which is "removed" to "rate down" one of the engines to turn the rocket vertically and bring it into a good position for the horizontal turn... and a good flightpath.

This is a normal procedure.

But as I see, the rocket swung after about 3 secounds, while this procedure was used.
I also think, one of the engine-exhausts had been moved to far from their normal limit and broke the auto-stabilising-funktion of the rocket.

greetings...
Soeren

There seems to be general agreement here that one of the engines gimballed to the full extent of its stops, but the question is why.

And why didn't the motion control system  stabilize the vehicle?

[pippin]

One comment (Need to nitpick):

The lack of. Insurance is NOT a problem here. The Russian government will certainly have lower re-financing rates than the insurance company plus they are still booking quite a number of launches. Under these circumstances, it makes no sense to insure your birds.

Insurance companies make a profit on average, they know their numbers (and as stated above that's pretty easy to do for Proton) so on average the Russian government would pay MORE for the insurance (in the long run, that is) than they lose on their sats.

Insurance only makes sense if either
* you can't afford the loss
* a mission is extraordinarily expensive (and you plan to repeat it in case of failure) AND you don't do a lot of these kind of missions
* your refinancing rates are much worse than the insurer's

The last point is important especially for small or medium sized operators since their business is more risky than insurance business. And also if you only fly a mission or so per year the immediate cost of a single loss weighs higher than the (higher) average cost of adding insurance.

For governments, insurance almost never makes any sense (not only for sat launches but for anything) unless their credit rating is really bad.

[Gorizont]

There seems to be general agreement here that one of the engines gimballed to the full extent of its stops, but the question is why.

And why didn't the motion control system  stabilize the vehicle?

This reminds me to one of the Mars-69-launches. (Mars-2C/M-69-2)
The rocket flew horizontal (head up, engines down), but moved sideways... and later it flew complete horizontal and crashed.

[R7]

And why didn't the motion control system  stabilize the vehicle?

Clearly it tried to do something but it didn't work, rolling kept accelerating all the time.

If one engine does the hard-over can the Bizer a) detect it reliably and b) do anything to kill the roll while maintaining balanced thrust?

[input~2]

In my first picture above, part of the plumes were masked by grey smoke creating a visual assymetry on the left, but a couple of seconds later the plumes are clear from the grey smoke and the assymetry on the right plume is visible

[Kabloona]

As I remember correctly, the brown fluid is the oxidizer, which is "removed" to "rate down" one of the engines to turn the rocket vertically and bring it into a good position for the horizontal turn... and a good flightpath.

This is a normal procedure.

Yes, and this can be seen in the SES-6 video I posted above. But the crash video shows a quite different, definitely *not* normal brown plume that appears at T+8, persists for a few seconds, and disappears. Then at about T+19 quite a lot of brown smoke appears.

The Russian source quoted in the article I posted upthread seems to believe the abnormal brown smoke indicates an oxidizer leak.

I agree that a hard-over TVC is the likely culprit for the pitch and roll excursions. But there's also the question of why NTO (brown smoke) appears abnormally in the plume at T+8, T+19 and thereafter.

One could well hypothesize an NTO line break or burn-through somewhere, especially since there's a huge puff of brown smoke (NTO?) just before the aft end bursts into flames.

[Ben the Space Brit]

This problem with one engine apparently operating at low power does seem to fit in with Russian reports about a premature release from the pad.

Does Proton have anything similar to the Soyuz procedure where the engines are run to ensure they are operating nominally for a few seconds before lift-off? An early release might have prevented that from being carried out properly.  Maybe there would have been a recoverable pad abort if an engine fault had been detected before lift-off.

[Kabloona]

Does Proton have anything similar to the Soyuz procedure where the engines are run to ensure they are operating nominally for a few seconds before lift-off?

Proton launch videos show vehicle motion almost simultaneous with ignition, so I doubt it.

[Gorizont]

Does Proton have anything similar to the Soyuz procedure where the engines are run to ensure they are operating nominally for a few seconds before lift-off?

Proton launch videos show vehicle motion almost simultaneous with ignition, so I doubt it.

No.
In one or more videos in my collection is visible, that the engines has different "starting-times".
The ones in the mid of the pad (4?) seems to start earlier than at the side of the pad. (2?)

The starting-procedure is different to Soyuz, I think.

greetings...
Soeren

[Star One]

Does Proton have anything similar to the Soyuz procedure where the engines are run to ensure they are operating nominally for a few seconds before lift-off?

Proton launch videos show vehicle motion almost simultaneous with ignition, so I doubt it.

Ariane certainly does that & I had assumed that this was a common procedure with launchers these days including for Proton?

[pippin]

Ariane does that for the solids (like STS did), they keep it on the pad for seconds after main engine ignition while it gets to full power

[Danderman]

Does Proton have anything similar to the Soyuz procedure where the engines are run to ensure they are operating nominally for a few seconds before lift-off?

Proton launch videos show vehicle motion almost simultaneous with ignition, so I doubt it.

No.
In one or more videos in my collection is visible, that the engines has different "starting-times".
The ones in the mid of the pad (4?) seems to start earlier than at the side of the pad. (2?)

The starting-procedure is different to Soyuz, I think.

greetings...
Soeren

Soyuz sits there for a while until the thrust builds up and exceeds the mass of the vehicle plus some weights that are attached to the launch pad. Once that points is reached, the vehicle can lift off.

This period while the thrust builds up seems to take forever. What I don't know is if the Soyuz prop lines remain attached until liftoff.

At any rate, Proton has a different approach.

[patchfree]

Angara, as I understand it, will use multiple boosters, which means multiple drop (and cleanup) sites compared to Proton, so the comparison is not straightforward.  Even Vostochny, as I understand it, will need drop zones on land.

 - Ed Kyle

No I think. First stage of Angara (3 or 5 version) will use multiple boosters (URMs) but in one block. So no multiple drop sites.

[Prober]

Angara, as I understand it, will use multiple boosters, which means multiple drop (and cleanup) sites compared to Proton, so the comparison is not straightforward.  Even Vostochny, as I understand it, will need drop zones on land.

 - Ed Kyle

No I think. First stage of Angara (3 or 5 version) will use multiple boosters (URMs) but in one block. So no multiple drop sites.

Hope something good comes out of this mess & Angara gets the funds to do Protons job. 

[simonbp]

Another way to look at it is that there has been one Proton-M failure per year for the past four years...

The historical rate of failure of Proton has been 88.40%, or one in 8.77 launches. And the average launch rate from 2000 to 2012 has been 8.62. I don't think this is a coincidence. As I said before, you know the reliability of a Proton. Consistency is a good characteristic.

Not when it's a consistent failure rate of 11-12%. No other launch vehicle in the world is anywhere near as accident prone.

Proton's advantage in the market is price and availability. Its only commercial competition is Ariane 5, which is substantially more expensive and has much few launch slots available. That may change, as Falcon Heavy (dual- or triple-manifested) could offer Proton-class prices at much, much higher reliability (and cheaper than Angara). But until that time Proton will continue to launch and crash...

[zaitcev]

Not when it's a consistent failure rate of 11-12%. No other launch vehicle in the world is anywhere near as accident prone.

Even not taking Safir and Unha, the good old all-American Taurus XL is less reliable than Proton. Some are even noticeably worse, such as GSLV.

[Kabloona]

Not when it's a consistent failure rate of 11-12%. No other launch vehicle in the world is anywhere near as accident prone.

Even not taking Safir and Unha, the good old all-American Taurus XL is less reliable than Proton. Some are even noticeably worse, such as GSLV.

I understand your defense of Proton, and I'm not knocking Proton. But it's a bit unfair to compare Taurus XL, which had only 3 launches (of XL config) with Proton which has had hundreds? of launches over 40+ years in which to iron out the bugs.

And lest you forget, Proton's "rushed development program led to dozens of failures between 1965 and 1972." (quote from Wikipedia)  By which standard Taurus compares favorably, considering not even a dozen Taurus have been launched, and most were a success. And if Orbital had the chance to launch a few hundred more, I'd bet a nickel Taurus reliability could beat Proton's reliability.

So let's be fair. 

[spectre9]

Zenit and Atlas V are also competitors.

[asmi]

That may change, as Falcon Heavy (dual- or triple-manifested) could offer Proton-class prices at much, much higher reliability (and cheaper than Angara). But until that time Proton will continue to launch and crash...

As Jim likes to point out, paper rockets are always cheaper and more reliable than their real counterparts...