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| Video: Proton M rocket launch and explosion.
Video credit: SpaceFlight101
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[Satellite TODAY 7-02-13] A Russian Proton-M rocket carrying three GLONASS Russian government navigation satellites exploded Tuesday morning only moments after being launched in Kazakhstan, according to International Launch Services (ILS) officials at Reston, Va. While there were no reported injuries in the safe area that had been evacuated prior to launch, ILS representatives reported there was mild damage to nearby buildings.
"Our technicians were on site and they said it was pretty damn frightening,” said SES Spokesman Yves Feltes noting that SES officials were thankful that their own “spacecraft is safe and on the ground.” SES’s Astra 2E satellite is scheduled for launch on July 20 aboard an ILS Proton rocket, which is why the team was on site at the time of Tuesday’s explosion.
Andrew D’Uva a consultant with Providence Access Company noted that, overall, these types of catastrophic incidents are “pretty rare these days,” he said.
But Jacob Gullish, director of space and telecommunications with Futron Corporation, said when it specifically comes down to the Russian space program, Tuesday’s explosion was not an isolated incident.
"They [Russians] have had a series of accidents over the past couple of years and in every instance, it’s here we go again, it’s yet another launch failure. Now it’s fair to say there is something clearly systematically wrong with [the] Russian launch industry,” Gullish said while noting that Europe and China have an opportunity to take over that market segment.
In Russia’s defense, Gullish said, "I think the good news is that the Russian government is committed to changing, to seriously and significantly reorganizing its space program. This could be a turning point that allows them to reposition themselves in highly competitive environment."
Industry experts have now said that Tuesday’s incident raises questions about SES’s next satellite launch. "It will most likely be delayed until they figure out what went wrong with the launch," said Eric Beaudet an equity analyst with Natixis Securities in Paris. But SES officials wouldn’t speculate. "It’s too early to say, it all depends on the investigation," Feltes said.
However, Feltes remains optimistic. “Historically, Proton has been good at returning to flight quite quickly,” he said.
Beaudet noted that SES’s other two satellite launches scheduled for 2013 are not scheduled on a Proton launch vehicle and will therefore not be impacted. The Astra 5A will launch on Arianespace’s Ariane 5, and the SES 8 on SpaceX’s Falcon 9. However, Beaudet noted that Eutelsat could be impacted, since its Express AT2 is scheduled for an ILS launch in December.
In the meantime, Roscosmos, the Russian Federal Space Agency, has set up an investigatory commission to ascertain the reasons behind the rocket’s failure, and ILS intends to conduct its own investigation, according to a written statement. Gullish estimates damages to be around $500 million.
Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center (KhSC) manufactures the Proton booster (stages 1, 2 and 3). S.P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation (Energia) is the prime contractor for the Block DM-03 upper stage (Stage 4). KhSC was responsible for performance of the Proton booster and Energia was responsible for performance of the Block DM-03 upper stage. The GLONASS mission was launched utilizing the “Phase I” Proton-M vehicle configuration that first flew in 2004. This Phase I Proton was powered by the RD-276 engines on first stage which was introduced with the Phase II upgrades and were used on a small number of Phase I Protons. The hardware for this mission was previously stored, then used for this mission, according to a written statement from ILS.