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

[FinalFrontier]

Whew! OK, next crisis-mongering.

What would a first stage quality control problem do to the launch date of Nauka to ISS?

I would expect the impact to be severe regardless of what happened here, the failure was so incredibly bad in this case I see a slip either way.

And Whew! is for sure. No nuclear contamination here, that's a huge relief. (RT typos  )

[FinalFrontier]

Certainly this to me is a very good reason to get rid of proton and for our politicians to get a bloody move on on captiol hill toward speeding commercial crew development, because right now the tactic has been to delay it by any means necessary.

Let's not overreact.  Proton != Soyuz.  While this failure may lend credence to to the argument for retiring Proton, it is irrelevant with respect to the development of an indigenous U.S. crew capability.

I had thought Glonass did not use RTG's. Still not totally sure but there was mention of it in this document:
http://ucsusa.org/assets/documents/nwgs/physics-space-security.pdf.

If you have a specific cite from that document that leads you to believe GLONASS uses RTGs, then please quote it. I've read it, and find no such indication.

Established that it doesn't. Please read my previous posts.

[MattJL]

I read that it crashed a short distance away from the other Proton pad.  Is it possible that both pads could be/are contaminated by the un-burned propellants? (In the vein of what happened back in '69 or so).  And if that's the cause, how would (if at all) it affect future operations in the area?

[owais.usmani]

What are the chances of Kazakhstan banning Proton launches altogether after this?

And yeah, poor ILS. They already had their hands filled with Briz-M and now this 

[woods170]

I called the Proton "noxious" in the leading space nation thread.

This is why.

Using a giant toxic first stage just isn't a good idea.

I hope the Kazakhs crack down hard. They have every right to be disappointed after expressing concerns about the amount of Proton launches taking place in their country.

This land is a rental and needs to be shown more respect.

It's time for a serious plan to retire Proton.

Over-reaction.

[xm11]

the next launch will be 21 july it will be delay ?

[Galactic Penguin SST]

the next launch will be 21 july it will be delay ?

There's no way it would not. I guess ILS will release a press release later today about yet another investigation....

[spectre9]

Maybe I was overreacting.

As an Australian I thought it was my right to be pushy about environmentalism.

Save the rainforest, stop carbon pollution, hug the trees, protect the whales 

Really puts the record of Ariane 5 into perspective. ESA shouldn't be thinking about ditching it in this market. They might even get away with a price hike.

[Galactic Penguin SST]

Hmm, the "wobbling" of the rocket from left to right is very strange - I can't see how this can happen either with (one or more) engine shutdown (it doesn't seems to be going slower than normal) or with engine gimballing problems (it would just veer off course in one direction - just like the Sea Launch Zenit did earlier this year).

I wonder if the guidance system got zapped or went out of control (either with the electric circuits or with the software) - this failure looks a lot like many of the spectacular launch failures worldwide (CZ-3B / Intelsat 708, Ariane 5 / CLUSTER, Titan IV A-20 etc.)....

[simonbp]

@FinalFrontier,

There could be radioisotope heating units. They are especially common for pressurized electronics, which IIRC most Russian-designed satellites use.

[owais.usmani]

Has anybody noticed this? There are reports that the cause could be the Blok DM-03 upper stage. And if google translate is not failing me, it is from RSC Energia itself. 

http://ria.ru/science/20130702/947021354.html

http://ria.ru/science/20130702/946977917.html

http://www.energia.ru/ru/news/news-2013/news_07-02.html

If this is true, then I guess Vitaly Lapota should pack his bags.

[woods170]

Whew! OK, next crisis-mongering.

What would a first stage quality control problem do to the launch date of Nauka to ISS?

Right now? Not a whole lot. The Russians tend to solve these problems rather quickly. Prior to this incident the launch date for Nauka had already shifted to NET april 2014. Time will tell if a quality control problem on Proton would shift Nauka back any further.

[InvalidAttitude]

Just like my launches in Kerbal Space ...

The ExoMars will use this same Proton configuration?

Edit: There was an earlier decision to cease the Glonass launches on Proton, because the lower reliability and not to place too much eggs in one basket. Why they reversed this?

[Space Pete]

Holy smokes!!!

That's the worst failure I've ever seen.

Getting very worried for MLM and ExoMars now.

Predict some heads will roll big time for this.

[Ben the Space Brit]

@ owais.usmani

I can't see how the Blok-DM03 could have triggered this short of a premature ignition and that would have just turned the entire vehicle into a large fireworks display in mid-air.  Can you give us more details of what was said?


[edit - Taken from Live Thread to avoid spamming it up with speculative discussion]

Apparently one source is claiming an engine failure on the Proton core.

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

I'm not sure the key word 'impossible' is too significant at this early stage into the investigation.  Most unexpected failure modes are listed as 'impossible' by the manufacturer right up until the moment that data and testing proves it is not.  That is usually when the blame game starts in earnest.

[Moskit]

Has anybody noticed this? There are reports that the cause could be the Blok DM-03 upper stage. And if google translate is not failing me, it is from RSC Energia itself. 
...

Folks, please stop generating too much noise based on Google-mistranslated articles.
This is already the second time in this thread, the first was that there were casualties.

In third article Energia reports that there was a failure of a Proton-M rocket with DM-03 upper stage. They also explain that DM-03 was NOT the reason of failure, since it isn't active until much later in the launch. Those articles are meant to stop people from saying it's DM-03 failure again.

Even the title of the first of the articles says "RKK Energia: upper stage could NOT be reason of Proton failure".

It is only in one of articles that someone tells the journalist that "it is not excluded yet that this was not caused by DM-03 stage explosion". He doesn't say it was the cause, he just says it is not ruled out yet. And of course we all know how journalists jump on every occasion to have sensational news.

[owais.usmani]

Thank you Moskit! much appreciated!  So Vitaly Lapota can forget about his bags for a while 

So its Khrunichev in deep trouble. And I wonder if even Viladimir Popovkin be sweating a bit, remember the last GLONASS failure ultimately caused the then Roscosmos boss his job.

[woods170]

Holy smokes!!!

That's the worst failure I've ever seen.

Getting very worried for MLM and ExoMars now.

Predict some heads will roll big time for this.

Another over-reaction.

People: settle down. This failure is not any worse than an upper stage malfunction. Result is the same: LOM.
The only difference is that this failure is visually more impressive.

[Ben the Space Brit]

Holy smokes!!!

That's the worst failure I've ever seen.

Getting very worried for MLM and ExoMars now.

Predict some heads will roll big time for this.

Another over-reaction.

People: settle down. This failure is not any worse than an upper stage malfunction. Result is the same: LOM.
The only difference is that this failure is visually more impressive.

That's not entirely true.  There is a far greater problem with HAZMAT contamination when the failure is on the ground or at low altitude.

One area in which Woods hits the nail on the head is that the underlying cause is unlikely to be anything more catastrophic than the underlying cause of the failure of an upper stage.  There may be another reorganisation if any management or procedural failure is identified.  In any case, I'm sure the engine manufacturers will have to handle having external QA inspectors double-checking their work for a while but that is likely as bad as it gets.

[AJA]

An upper stage failure responsible for this seems unlikely, given that the break-up happened long after the rocket was pointing downward. To me, its almost certainly due to the severely off-nominal aerodynamic loads on the structure. Then again, if there was some crazy stuff happening with the upper stage mass distribution (due to some "explosion" that the shell of the stage managed to contain), that could account for the wild direction changes. I'm not an expert, but neither are RIA Novosti, and definitive statements that result from an algorithm where you first assume your part of the rocket worked perfectly, and then analyse preliminary footage to find another cause seem ill-thought out.

And as regards that footage: the exhaust plume curvature / direction not being along the rocket is kind of obvious since the rocket's turning. Whether we're seeing the cause or the effect of the failure, I don't know.. Is it possible that the spin we're seeing was induced deliberately, to try and regain some stability and stall turn rate? The 40 second disabling on the engine shutdown seems a good move to me. Even without control / guidance... They might've figured that the rocket has a minimum radius of curvature, and with x of y engines firing, the arc of that uncontrolled turn would take it far enough away from the pad AND plough it into the ground well away from any firing room. (Admittedly, the direction of veer is variable, and there's ALWAYS a risk)

Also, FinalFrontier: Even if they use RTGs to provide active heating for geo-centric orbital night-times (which are short), I'd think RTGs would have the same standard of hardened protection around the fuel, as the atomic clocks would, and if anything, a helluva lot more..? So why the differential concern for atomic clocks v RTGs?

Finally, it's been pointed out that the Protons have a huge number of successful launches that they've racked up. To cite this LOM while contrasting the rocket with new vehicles, or other vehicles that haven't done the same number - and assuming that others will be/ or are a lot safer is just irresponsible. None of it is objective evalution. Definitely don't need it buttressing arguments of chest-thumping superiority. That just makes it harder for joint ventures.