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Arabsat 4A Loss is Russia’s 3rd Space Mishap in 8 Months |
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MOSCOW, March 2, 2006/Satnews Daily/ — The malfunction of the Russian-made rocket that left Arabsat 4A stranded in useless orbit on Wednesday is the third serious accident suffered by Russia’s space program in eight months.
In October 8 last year, an Earth monitoring satellite was lost because of another Russian booster failure. The $169.7 million (140 million euro) CryoSat satellite of the European Space Agency blasted off atop a Russian-built Rockot/Britz-KM launch vehicle but went crashing into the sea after its launch went wrong.
The Rockot is a converted Soviet-era SS-19 ballistic missile with an additional Breeze-KM upper stage. CryoSat was to conduct a three-year mapping of polar ice caps and provide more reliable data for the study of global warming.
A few days later, Russia’s Federal Space Agency controllers lost contact with the Russian-built Monitor-E satellite after it lost orientation on October 18. The Monitor-E satellite was launched from the Plesetsk space center in northern Russia in Aug. 26, 2005. The satellite was designed to assess the aftermath of emergency situations, map surface areas, survey agriculture and forestry conditions. Monitor-E satellite was eventually recovered and based on recent reports, it is back in harness as it monitored China’s chemical spill in November last year.
Earlier, on June 21, 2005, a Russian Molnia rocket carrying a sensitive military communications satellite crashed shortly after taking off from Plesetsk launch pad. The crash of the Molnia-M launch vehicle was caused by the third-stage engine failure or an unexecuted command for the separation of the second and third stages. The accident occurred 298 seconds after the launch and prevented placing the satellite designed for defense purposes into orbit. The satellite crashed in Sibera's sparsely populated Tyumen region.
Following the failed launches, Russia's President Vladimir Putin fired the chief of the Khrunichev company that built the Rokot booster. The Proton Breeze M rocket that failed on Wednesday was also built by Khrunichev.
Yesterday’s failure was the third in 36 launches of
ILS Protons since commercial missions began in 1996. The two earlier
mishaps — in 1997 and 2002 — involved Block DM upper stages, which ILS
no longer actively markets for its Proton launches, according to space
observers. An emergency panel of space officials is already investigating the failed launch, according to Russia’s Federal Space Agency spokesman Vyacheslav Davidenko. He said experts from the European Astrium company that had built the satellite were trying to save it by guiding it to a proper orbit using the vehicle own orientation engines. But Davidenko admitted “chances for success are slim.”
According to ILS statement, the Proton Breeze M rocket lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 2:10 a.m. March 1 local time (3:10 p.m. Tuesday EST, 20:10 Tuesday GMT). Preliminary flight information indicated that the Breeze M upper stage shut down early during its planned burn sequence. As a contingency, the satellite was separated. ILS said it cannot comment on the disposition of the spacecraft at this time.
Recent Stories: Mission Failure: Arabsat 4A Fails to Reach Orbit After ILS Proton Launch Anomaly ILS Proton Ready for Wednesday Launch of Arabsat 4A Arabsat and CETel Offer New Internet via Satellite Service from Germany via Arabsat 2B |
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