Recent Failures/Krunichev Processing issues

[Ben the Space Brit]

Posted by Danderman on the Live Event Section:

http://tass.ru/en/russia/796547

The results of the work of the commission investigating the causes of the Proton-M carrier rocket crash that occurred on May 16 will be reported to the government on Friday, May 29, a Russian space and industry source told TASS on Monday.

"The commission will complete its work and report the results to the Russian government on May 29," the source said.

According to him, the emergencies commission working at the Khrunichev Centre (Proton manufacturer) has exposed a number of violations in the carrier rocket production. "This is, undoubtedly, a human error. The fault occurred in the rocket manufacturing process," he said.

If  this early preliminary indication is borne out then things are likely going to get very uncomfortable at Khrunichev. This is the second high-profile LOM that has been traced to a catastrophic manufacturing quality control failure. I would argue that the case for a root-and-branch reorganisation is now unanswerable if only to avoid future humiliation.