constant delays in mission timeline
and high accident rate.
• It is a serious blow for industry reputation, especially for commercial
payloads. Russian space operators
would be hit by bigger insurance
premiums and most likely might
lose their share of commercial
launch market, that already shrunk
in current political climate.
• The majority of Soyuz and ProtonM launch vehicles still grounded
until investigation boards would
reveal findings of accidents. This
would definitely would bring a
further delay for 2015 missions.
• During his speech in Russian Parliament Russian Deputy Premier D.
Rogozin outlined the following
major challenges for reviving
once-proud space sector:
• Obsolete and underused manufacturing capabilities.
• Obsolete design process without
modern CAD/CAM systems.
• Corruption and bad workforce
morale.
• Low salaries prevent attracting
young graduates.
• Personnel generation gap and
loss of “Know How”.
• Low productivity.
It’s not first time something wrong
happening during mission launches,
and unfortunately not last one.
Space exploration was, still and
would be a hard endeavour. The
very nature of current state of affairs
in Russian space industry just confirming how deep is system crisis - so
far Russian space program did not
recover since 90s but hopefully thing
would became better in the nearest
future.
It’s pity that country that pioneered the very concept of Space
exploration is falling behind of US,
European Union, Chinese, Indian
and Japanese space missions. For
the most western observers Russia is
unpredictable country, so there are
good chances that Russian space
program achievements would became a matter of national pride.
Understanding aftermath
We have to give Russians a break
because recent string of accidents
68
68
Despite recent failures of Russian rockets, the crewed version of the Soyuz has continued to be a reliable
spacecraft. Here, the TMA-14M rocket launches in 2014. Credit: NASA/Aubrey Gemignani
reveal a strong resilience of Russian
sp ace industry. In June 2015 Russian
Space agency managed to achieve
the following:
• Surprising Soyuz 2.1a “return
to flight” launch from Plesetsk
(Kobalt-M DoD payload) on 5th of
June 2015.
• Soyuz 2.1b planned launch from
Plesetsk (DoD payload, possibly
Persona-class satellite) on 23rd of
June 2015.
• Progress M-26M spacecraft managed to successfully correct ISS
orbit on multiple occasions.
• Progress M-27M Investigation
board concluded that major
reason for mission loss was a
catastrophic event during spacecraft separation from third stage
of launch vehicle. RSC Progress
would perform simulation of this
process and would follow up with
some changes in rocket design
to guarantee delivery of Progress
spacecrafts on Soyuz-2.1a LV.
• Next Progress M-28M cargo mission
was moved up from August to July
3, and was succesfully launched
on the Soyuz-U LV (as planned).
• Proton M Investigation board concluded that premature cutoff of
the third stage propulsion system
happened due to turbopump
design fault in vernier engine
dated back to Soviet times (1985)
Roscosmos decided not to extend
contract of KBKhA Chif Designer
Vladimir Rachuk (who created
cryogenic RD-0120 engines for Soviet Energia LV - analog of American SSME) holding him personally
responsible for other team design
choices. Voronezh KBKhA is a
rocket engine company that created and supervised production of
Proton-M third stage engines.
• Roscosmos would publish Proton-M
launch schedule in the beginning
of July.
• Next manned mission for ISS
on Soyuz-17M is planned to be
launched in the end of July.
www.RocketSTEM .org