The Breeze-KM Upper Stage that lifted off with a Rockot launch vehicle from Plesetsk on January 15, has apparently encountered a previously unreported problem affecting the deployment of the three military communications satellite carried onboard. The three Strela 3M Rodnik satellites are derived from the Strela satellite family created in the Soviet Union during the 1960s. Rodnik satellites have a useful [...]
Post Tagged with: “Failure”
Sea Launch Investigation Reveals Cause of Failure
Sea Launch has closed the official investigation into the Zenit 3SL’s failure which occurred on February 1, 2013. According to the firm, the mishap was caused by a faulty hydraulic pump used to steer the Zenit 3SL booster during flight. “The pump failure was the result of contributing factors associated with a pump manufacturing process that proved difficult to control,” [...]
NASA’s Orion Lands Safely on Two of Three Parachutes in Test
Source: NASA NASA engineers have demonstrated the agency’s Orion spacecraft can land safely if one of its three main parachutes fails to inflate during deployment. The test was conducted Tuesday in Yuma, Ariz., with the parachutes attached to a test article. Engineers rigged the parachutes so only two would inflate, leaving the third to flag behind, when the test capsule [...]
Update on Rockot Launch: Possible Breeze-KM Failure
The Breeze-KM Upper Stage that lifted off onboard a Rockot launch vehicle along with 3 military communications satellites on January 15, may have encountered a problem affecting the final de-orbiting. Although there is no official information as to whether or not the stage was supposed to perform a final burn to achieve a reentry orbit following the payloads’ deployment, similar perigee [...]
Energia Rejects Booster Company Integration
Head of Russian rocket manufacturer Energia Vitaly Lopota has rejected proposals to create a holding company that would have integrated the leading booster manufacturers Khrunichev and TsSKB Progress. “This proposal would completely eliminate the competitive environment in the country,” stated Lopota. The move had been proposed by high ranking officials in the Russian government in order to introduce unified quality control [...]
Breeze-M Fails Again
On December 8 at 17:13 Moscow time, a Proton-M rocket with Breeze-M upper stage launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome carrying Yamal-402, a communications satellite built by Thales Alenia Space for the Russian-owned Gazprom company. Instead of announcing successful separation nine hours later, International Launch Services (ILS) found itself announcing an anomaly: “Preliminary flight information indicates that the 4th and final burn of [...]
Communication Satellites, Delayed by Breeze-M Failure, Now Deployed
On Friday November 2, a Proton rocket with Breeze-M upper stage launched from Baikonour Cosmodrome carrying two communication satellites. Proton and Breeze-M contractor Khrunichev declared the launch a success. Satellite builder Reshetnev Information Satellite Systems Co. said all mechanisms have now deployed properly. The Breeze-M, which has had a somewhat troubled history over the past couple years, fired four times to [...]
Phobos-Grunt 2 Bound for Launch in 2020, Russians Confirmed While Celebrating Sputnik
It seems Russian spirits weren’t broken by last year’s Phobos-Grunt launch fiasco and less then a year after the botch it was confirmed that a Phobos-Grunt 2 mission might take place in 2020 or 2021. Speaking during the “Days of Science” dedicated to the 55th anniversary of Sputnik, Lev Zeleny, the director of the Space Research Institute of the Russian [...]
Meet “CSI: NASA”
Source: NASA Working side-by-side with designers developing technologies of the future are engineers deciphering what went wrong with some of the technologies of the present. They analyze readouts from precision tools, devise ways to test large pieces of rocket hardware without damaging the rocket itself, and burn, blow up or vaporize leftover fragments in an effort to find out why [...]
Investigation on Envisat Continues
Source: ESA. Optical, radar and laser observations of the Envisat satellite show that it is still in a stable orbit. Efforts to regain contact with the satellite have been under way since 8 April, when it unexpectedly stopped sending data to Earth. To determine if Envisat has entered its ‘safe mode’ – which would be a starting point for revival – [...]
