"To demolish and rebuild everything"
It seems that Russian space enterprises have seriously decided to take a “honorable” place next to domestic football and no less domestic auto industry.
On the night of August 7, the next two satellites were lost: Express MD2 and Telkom-3. From 2010, this is already 7-th unsuccessful launch, which is more correctly called a failure.
Express MD-2 was established at the Khrunichev Center together with foreign enterprises, in particular, with the assistance of the division of the Italian company Thales Alenia Space. The satellite was intended for round-the-clock retransmission over the territory of Russia, besides, it had to take on some of the functions of another Express, which 2011 did not get to orbit in August. But apparently not destiny.
The second - Telkom-3 - was also created in Russia, but another design bureau, for the Indonesian company Telekomunikasi Indonesia Tbk. The satellite was supposed to provide television and communication in Indonesia and Indochina.
The satellites were planned to be launched in May of this year, but for various reasons, the launch was postponed. 26 July is one of the last dates, but then the launch did not take place due to serious problems, for which even the satellites had to be undocked. An Interfax source in the industry explained that the problems were in the Briz-M upper stage, because of him, according to preliminary data, the current state of emergency occurred.
The general launch program according to the plan looked as follows. 6 in August in 23: 31 from Baikonur the Proton-M launch vehicle with satellites onboard starts. In 8: 44 and 9: 14 Moscow time, the Telkom-3 and Express MD2 satellites should have separated, respectively. These stages were completed regularly. But then the problems started. After separation of the satellites, the overclocking engines stopped working in 7 seconds, whereas 18 minutes and 13 seconds should work.
According to one version, the satellites and the upper stage were undocked; on the other, they remained in the upper stage.
In any case, their final transformation, into aimlessly rotating orbital debris, has already been confirmed by Roscosmos.
Information sources said that the satellites could threaten the ISS, but experts reassured everyone, assuring that the situation around the station was being monitored by the US and Russian services. If the station detects a dangerous trajectory, an evasion maneuver will be performed.
Naturally, another failure of this magnitude raised the eternal question “who is to blame and what to do?”.
Until the official reason for the unsuccessful launch has been identified, experts speculate and unanimously point out the lack of quality control in the industry. The management of the company, which has collected poor-quality equipment, is predicted of dismissal and resignation. But staff rotation, apparently, does not solve all the problems. Permutations in Roscosmos did not lead to cardinal changes - the satellites, in any case, did not cease to fall ...
On Tuesday, 7 of August, the Roscosmos Commission should come to a conclusion about the reasons for the breakdown of the launch of satellites into orbit. If the overall picture is clear: the engines of the overclocking unit have failed, then this is the reason for their refusal to find out only to be.
Telemetric information is currently being analyzed with the participation of specialists from the Khrunichev Research and Development Center, the developers of the Briz-M upper stage, and launch participants who flew in specially from the Baikonur cosmodrome.
Among the main ones there are several versions: breakdown of the control system of the upper stage, errors in the creation of the flight pattern, problems in the propulsion system. An abnormal situation occurred after the second shutdown of the accelerator. Implied and the third. But it did not happen.
The same expert named RIA “News"Version that the main reason could be the human factor. He stressed that during all the last unsuccessful launches, emergency situations occurred with accelerating blocks due to errors in the calculations of the flight task, or due to problems with switching on the accelerator engines.
In his opinion, one of the main problems of the industry is motivation of staff. Employees are extremely careless in the performance of their duties. Problems with self-discipline and elementary decency reached a new level. For example, a director who fails several starts waits until he is dismissed and does not leave his place.
“Unfortunately, I got the impression that in the space industry you just need to demolish everything and build it anew,” the expert concluded.
Total losses for Russia due to unsuccessful launches range from 6 to 8,5 billions of rubles. The satellites, however, were insured: Express MD2 in Ingosstrakh, and Telkom-3 in AlfaStrakhovanii on 1.177 billion and 240 million rubles, respectively. However, the problem is that the loss for Russia is not only in money, but also in reputation. And if we can throw our money into orbit, how many will fit, no one will say a word for it, then the cynical capitalist world is extremely intolerant of not fulfilling obligations. For Indonesia, in particular, and for the region as a whole, the loss of a satellite is uncritical, but for the first one, failure with a satellite is a blow to national prestige, and therefore to trust in the Russian cosmonautics.
What are the consequences for the perpetrators of the next accident?
Considering that for the Khrunichev Center this is already the third incident in two years, the troubles will most likely come, especially since the management managed to avoid punishment the first two times. According to a source of Kommersant-Online, which is close to the leadership of Roskosmos, no papers on dismissals have yet been signed, but hinted that heads, after all, can roll after the announcement of the official causes of the accident.
It should be noted that the current disaster occurred already after Roscosmos organized its own quality control system at the enterprises of the industry. In addition, it also occurred after the executive authorities made extremely tough remarks against Roskosmos. The current prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev (if someone is confused), intends to personally analyze the situation in the space industry, for which a special meeting will be convened. This information was received by ITAR-TASS from the press secretary of the Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin. Still, seven is a magic number. The first six accidents were not enough for a large meeting ...
Experts, however, argue that in this industry, cadres do not solve everything and cannot be exhausted by permutations alone. Large-scale structural changes are needed.
Alexander Zheleznyakov, Academician of the Tsiolkovsky Russian Academy of Cosmonautics, in an interview with Kommersant FM, said that an adequate system of cardinal measures is needed to eliminate the identified deficiencies, but there are no such changes in the industry.
He also noted that product quality control is extremely important, and the experience of the Soviet Union was very useful here.
Considering the overall situation, Zheleznyakov stressed: “The problem with the Briz-M upper stages is not new. In August of last year, due to the refusal of the overhead of this type, another Express did not hit the given orbit - AM4 modification. “Breeze” has been applied for years and statistics show that its reliability is about 91%. The figure is not bad for the first years of space exploration, but now they are trying to approach 97-98%. ”
The former head of Roscosmos, Anatoly Perminov, dismissed in April 2011, V.V. Putin, also expressed his opinion on the problems with the launches.
He believes that the test should be both at the “technical and organizational stages”, and the reason for the large number of failures during launches is the lack of a unified control system. In Roskosmos, the management was eliminated, which was engaged in carrier rockets and upper stages, as a result, the complex of necessary measures before launch was not carried out, and responsibility for the failures was “blurred”.
When and on whose initiative the said management disappeared, as well as why it did not return during his leadership of Roskosmos, Perminov did not explain ITAR-TASS.
Interestingly, the statements, after every accident at launch, sound almost similar word for word, but no action other than numerous summits and angry promises in the style of "the guilty will be severely punished" - should not be. At the same time, the number of space powers tends to increase and take positions in this race is extremely dangerous. Each state of emergency at start takes not only money from the budget of the country, but also points from a piggy bank of reputation. So far there are not many alternatives besides Russia for launching satellites into orbit, but this situation is unlikely to persist for long.
On the night of August 7, the next two satellites were lost: Express MD2 and Telkom-3. From 2010, this is already 7-th unsuccessful launch, which is more correctly called a failure.
Express MD-2 was established at the Khrunichev Center together with foreign enterprises, in particular, with the assistance of the division of the Italian company Thales Alenia Space. The satellite was intended for round-the-clock retransmission over the territory of Russia, besides, it had to take on some of the functions of another Express, which 2011 did not get to orbit in August. But apparently not destiny.
The second - Telkom-3 - was also created in Russia, but another design bureau, for the Indonesian company Telekomunikasi Indonesia Tbk. The satellite was supposed to provide television and communication in Indonesia and Indochina.
The satellites were planned to be launched in May of this year, but for various reasons, the launch was postponed. 26 July is one of the last dates, but then the launch did not take place due to serious problems, for which even the satellites had to be undocked. An Interfax source in the industry explained that the problems were in the Briz-M upper stage, because of him, according to preliminary data, the current state of emergency occurred.
The general launch program according to the plan looked as follows. 6 in August in 23: 31 from Baikonur the Proton-M launch vehicle with satellites onboard starts. In 8: 44 and 9: 14 Moscow time, the Telkom-3 and Express MD2 satellites should have separated, respectively. These stages were completed regularly. But then the problems started. After separation of the satellites, the overclocking engines stopped working in 7 seconds, whereas 18 minutes and 13 seconds should work.
According to one version, the satellites and the upper stage were undocked; on the other, they remained in the upper stage.
In any case, their final transformation, into aimlessly rotating orbital debris, has already been confirmed by Roscosmos.
Information sources said that the satellites could threaten the ISS, but experts reassured everyone, assuring that the situation around the station was being monitored by the US and Russian services. If the station detects a dangerous trajectory, an evasion maneuver will be performed.
Naturally, another failure of this magnitude raised the eternal question “who is to blame and what to do?”.
Until the official reason for the unsuccessful launch has been identified, experts speculate and unanimously point out the lack of quality control in the industry. The management of the company, which has collected poor-quality equipment, is predicted of dismissal and resignation. But staff rotation, apparently, does not solve all the problems. Permutations in Roscosmos did not lead to cardinal changes - the satellites, in any case, did not cease to fall ...
On Tuesday, 7 of August, the Roscosmos Commission should come to a conclusion about the reasons for the breakdown of the launch of satellites into orbit. If the overall picture is clear: the engines of the overclocking unit have failed, then this is the reason for their refusal to find out only to be.
Telemetric information is currently being analyzed with the participation of specialists from the Khrunichev Research and Development Center, the developers of the Briz-M upper stage, and launch participants who flew in specially from the Baikonur cosmodrome.
Among the main ones there are several versions: breakdown of the control system of the upper stage, errors in the creation of the flight pattern, problems in the propulsion system. An abnormal situation occurred after the second shutdown of the accelerator. Implied and the third. But it did not happen.
The same expert named RIA “News"Version that the main reason could be the human factor. He stressed that during all the last unsuccessful launches, emergency situations occurred with accelerating blocks due to errors in the calculations of the flight task, or due to problems with switching on the accelerator engines.
In his opinion, one of the main problems of the industry is motivation of staff. Employees are extremely careless in the performance of their duties. Problems with self-discipline and elementary decency reached a new level. For example, a director who fails several starts waits until he is dismissed and does not leave his place.
“Unfortunately, I got the impression that in the space industry you just need to demolish everything and build it anew,” the expert concluded.
Total losses for Russia due to unsuccessful launches range from 6 to 8,5 billions of rubles. The satellites, however, were insured: Express MD2 in Ingosstrakh, and Telkom-3 in AlfaStrakhovanii on 1.177 billion and 240 million rubles, respectively. However, the problem is that the loss for Russia is not only in money, but also in reputation. And if we can throw our money into orbit, how many will fit, no one will say a word for it, then the cynical capitalist world is extremely intolerant of not fulfilling obligations. For Indonesia, in particular, and for the region as a whole, the loss of a satellite is uncritical, but for the first one, failure with a satellite is a blow to national prestige, and therefore to trust in the Russian cosmonautics.
What are the consequences for the perpetrators of the next accident?
Considering that for the Khrunichev Center this is already the third incident in two years, the troubles will most likely come, especially since the management managed to avoid punishment the first two times. According to a source of Kommersant-Online, which is close to the leadership of Roskosmos, no papers on dismissals have yet been signed, but hinted that heads, after all, can roll after the announcement of the official causes of the accident.
It should be noted that the current disaster occurred already after Roscosmos organized its own quality control system at the enterprises of the industry. In addition, it also occurred after the executive authorities made extremely tough remarks against Roskosmos. The current prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev (if someone is confused), intends to personally analyze the situation in the space industry, for which a special meeting will be convened. This information was received by ITAR-TASS from the press secretary of the Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin. Still, seven is a magic number. The first six accidents were not enough for a large meeting ...
Experts, however, argue that in this industry, cadres do not solve everything and cannot be exhausted by permutations alone. Large-scale structural changes are needed.
Alexander Zheleznyakov, Academician of the Tsiolkovsky Russian Academy of Cosmonautics, in an interview with Kommersant FM, said that an adequate system of cardinal measures is needed to eliminate the identified deficiencies, but there are no such changes in the industry.
He also noted that product quality control is extremely important, and the experience of the Soviet Union was very useful here.
Considering the overall situation, Zheleznyakov stressed: “The problem with the Briz-M upper stages is not new. In August of last year, due to the refusal of the overhead of this type, another Express did not hit the given orbit - AM4 modification. “Breeze” has been applied for years and statistics show that its reliability is about 91%. The figure is not bad for the first years of space exploration, but now they are trying to approach 97-98%. ”
The former head of Roscosmos, Anatoly Perminov, dismissed in April 2011, V.V. Putin, also expressed his opinion on the problems with the launches.
He believes that the test should be both at the “technical and organizational stages”, and the reason for the large number of failures during launches is the lack of a unified control system. In Roskosmos, the management was eliminated, which was engaged in carrier rockets and upper stages, as a result, the complex of necessary measures before launch was not carried out, and responsibility for the failures was “blurred”.
When and on whose initiative the said management disappeared, as well as why it did not return during his leadership of Roskosmos, Perminov did not explain ITAR-TASS.
Interestingly, the statements, after every accident at launch, sound almost similar word for word, but no action other than numerous summits and angry promises in the style of "the guilty will be severely punished" - should not be. At the same time, the number of space powers tends to increase and take positions in this race is extremely dangerous. Each state of emergency at start takes not only money from the budget of the country, but also points from a piggy bank of reputation. So far there are not many alternatives besides Russia for launching satellites into orbit, but this situation is unlikely to persist for long.
Information