IMAGE: AP PHOTO/ASSOCIATED PRESS
A Russian Proton-M rocket containing
the country's most radical satellite to date, the Express-AM4R, crashed near
Kazakhstan approximately nine minutes after launch. The cause for the disastrous
breakdown is still unknown. An initial theory is that the rocket experienced a
failure in one of the third phase's steering engines.
Oleg Ostapenko, the cheif of
the Russian national space agency (Roscosmos) in an RT report said "The
exact cause is hard to establish immediately. We will be studying the
telemetry. Preliminary information points to an emergency pressure drop in a
steering engine of the third stage of the rocket."
The leftovers of the rocket
and its shipment seem to have burned up in the atmosphere, so there's possibly no
damage on the ground. The takeoff went unusual during the 540th second of the airlift
when a reserve engine shut-down was activated in reaction to the rocket conflicting
from its planned trajectory. In the third stage, called Briz-M, the rocket was
about 93 miles (150 km) beyond the ground, just 40 seconds earlier it was to organize
its payload into orbit.
Today's crash results the
sixth main failure in just four years for the Proton.
IMAGE: VESTI 24 VIA APTN/ASSOCIATED PRESS
IMAGE: VESTI 24 VIA APTN/ASSOCIATED PRESS
In
October 2013, it dismissed its Roscosmos chief after less than two years on the
job. Russian President Vladimir Putin tasked Ostapenko with revamping the space
agency. Russian President Vladimir Putin tasked Ostapenko with restoring the
space agency. The Russian government has ruined billions in additional state
funding to repair the program.
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