Proton Crash

[Cosmos3110]

So a Proton M crashed today after its launch from Baikonour. Thoughts?

[News Stories]

http://rt.com/news/159304-proton-rocket-crashed-kazakhstan/

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2014/05/russian-proton-m-launches-with-ekspress-am4r/

http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/16/world/europe/russia-rocket-accident/

[Godot]

The payload was "Russia´s most advanced satellite" ... sounds like an expensive loss

But better a satellite than a manned Soyuz capsule (on the other hand, I guess that a manned mission to ISS would be improbable nevertheless, considering the current political climate (Ukraina crisis) )

Edited May 17, 2014 by Godot

[Justy]

But better a satellite than a manned Soyuz capsule (on the other hand, I guess that a manned mission to ISS would be improbable nevertheless, considering the current political climate (Ukraina crisis) )

The manned Soyuz capsule has a launch escape system, and it's been used twice, both times successful.

• 1975, just before the 5 minute mark climbing through 145 km, the third stage lit even though the second stage failed to properly separate. The flight computer fired the Soyuz' service module engines to move it clear of the booster (the LES tower was already jettisoned), then separated the SM and OM from the RM manned capsule.
  
• 1983, 90 seconds to launch, a kerosene fire on the launch pad. Mission control had to activate the escape system via radio backup because the fire had burned through the control cables! From there, automated systems separated the spacecraft and cut the payload shroud, fired the LES tower to pull the RM and OM clear (17 gees!), ditched the OM, dumped the heavy heat shield, deployed parachutes and fired the braking rockets, all automatic. The crew was recovered a few minutes after; the pad fire burned well into the next day.
  

They made sure the launch escape system on Soyuz worked. Twice it turned "disastrous spaceflight accident kills three cosmonauts" into "triumph of engineering protects lives of three cosmonauts." Fun fact, the Russian term for Launch Escape System is Sistema Avariynogo Spaseniya. Russians know how important it is to have SAS on a rocket!

As far as Proton goes... Proton has had its share of failures, most of them to do with the upper stages ("Blok D" or "Briz," depending on the flight), and the rest in the first & second stages. The third stage was only a problem twice before, once 24 years ago, the other so far back man hadn't landed on the Moon yet. The third stage has been perhaps the only reliable part of that rocket.

For now, politics is not interfering with the CURRENT operation of the ISS, though it is raising some questions about its future. Soyuz TMA-13M is still planned to fly on May 28, carrying Expedition 40 -- one Russian, one American, and one European (German).

Edited May 18, 2014 by Justy

[kenbobo]

I am shocked, wow, the russians ALMOST have had a perfect launch history

[rdfox]

Short version, when you fly a rocket several THOUSAND times (the basic R-7 booster that, with upper stages, is still used as the Soyuz booster has been in continuous use since 1957, and the Proton since about 1965), even after the early "working out the bugs" phase, by the nature of rocketry, you're going to lose a few--no mechanical system can ever be perfect, and while a flaw that slips past quality control in a car, for example, may see the engine die and leave you stranded at the side of the road, in rockets, failures tend to cascade, and cascade RAPIDLY, usually resulting in Rapid Spontaneous Unplanned Disassembly.

The R-7 and Proton series are both extremely reliable workhorses (the R-7 in particular, as it's the only booster the Soviets/Russians have ever man-rated), comparable in reliability to the Delta series, the post-1963 Atlases, and the Titans. (Nobody has ever matched the reliability of the Saturn series, which suffered all of *two* major non-catastrophic failures in its entire flight history--Apollo 6 had the two engine failures in the second stage and the pogo-induced failure of the third stage to relight, while Apollo 13 had an early second stage second-engine cutout, but neither of these ended up being mission-killers, as the booster was able to compensate with extended burn times and, on 6, the ground controllers saved the mission by using the Service Module engine to fly a planned alternate mission after the failed second burn ignition. However, there simply WEREN'T very many Saturn launches to begin with--ten Saturn Is, nine Saturn IBs, and 13 Saturn Vs--so with such a small sample size compared to the number of launches that just about every other major launch vehicle family has flown, it's really hard to say that you have a representative view of the vehicle's reliability; even the Shuttle flew four times as many missions as the entire Saturn family.) If I had a payload that really, REALLY needed to get into orbit without worries about a launch failure, I'd certainly put the R-7 and Proton on my shortlist of booster options. (Yes, I'd take out an insurance policy against a launch failure anyway. I'm an engineer; I like to have my contingencies covered!)