DM-3 booster with 3 Glonass-M satellites falls into Pacific
© RIA Novosti. Oleg Urusov
Posted on 12/05/2010 10:49:06 AM PST by Pan_Yan
MOSCOW, Dec. 5 (Xinhua) -- Three Russian satellites launched earlier Sunday have crashed into the Pacific Ocean off Hawaii Islands after falling off course, RIA news agency reported.
Russia's space agency Roscosmos is not available for confirmation at present.
According to the latest information gained by RIA Novosti, the upper stage of the Proton-M rocket carrier and three Glonass-M navigation satellites have fallen into the sea area 1500 km northwest of Honolulu, causing no casualties nor damages.
Interfax said in a latest report the crash might be caused by stronger propulsive force of the Proton-M rocket, which deviated from its planned course to eight degrees.
"The rocket's engine gave a much bigger impetus than planned, and the orbiting unit separated at an altitude much higher than the designated one," the source was quoted as saying.
The crash, though unconfirmed, may not produce severe damage to its Glonass navigation system and the 26 satellites currently in orbit and their spare satellites are capable of securing the signals to cover the Russian territory, the report said, quoting an official from the Defense Ministry.
A special committee was already set up to investigate the case, Interfax reported.
The Proton-M rocket blasted off from Kazakh Baikonur space center with three Glonass-M satellites atop at 01:25 p.m. Moscow time (1125 GMT) Sunday. The satellites were expected to be put into orbit at about 04:27 p.m. Moscow time (1427 GMT) and thus to complete the formation of the Russian Glonass satellites constellation.
The Sunday launch was the 11th Proton launch this year. The previous ten launches, including two that positioned Glonass navigation satellites, were successful.
Glonass is the Russian equivalent of the U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS), which is designed for both military and civilian use.
DM-3 booster with 3 Glonass-M satellites falls into Pacific
© RIA Novosti. Oleg Urusov
“Glonass is the Russian equivalent of the U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS), which is designed for both military and civilian use.”
Equivalent? In intent- maybe yes. In reality - No.
After 50 years of rocket science/engineering, why do I just not believe that? It's hard to build a rocket with enough boost, how would anybody accidentally build one with too much boost?
Or is this a controllable engine that simply blew out it's fuel way too early? Who's a rocket scientist around here?
Hey - where are we?
At the bottom of the damn pacific ocean!
LOL!
Causing no damage?
The damage is to 3 satellites. Probably a very expensive failure.
We used to have a really cool rocket scientist around here but he somehow found enemies and it wasn’t worth it.
bump
Anyone know the payload per satellite?
Were their names “Moe’’,’’ Larry’’& “Curly’’?
“Boost” is measured in seconds and is called impulse. Basicaly it is a measure of the amount of thrust and fuel to time consumption. A low thrust high fuel rocket would have similar amount of boost to a high thrust low fuel rocket.
So, it is possible that they put too much fuel in the tanks. Or if they had new engines, they might have miscalculated the actual thrust and needed amount of fuel.
It seems like they could have turned off the engines once they had provided the required total impulse.
Regards,
GtG
Sounds like faulty navigation.
And where will they be accidentally dropping their satellites next?
For example, posit the Proton trajectory deviated over 8 degrees about the x-axis (see above). For a constant arel, this would result in an increased az and reduced ay.
In other words, rather than an orbital insertion, the Proton would eneter a pure ballistic trajectory. To quote Tom Lehrer, "Once der rockets are up, who cares vere vey come down. That's not mein department," says Wernher von Braun.
Ah. We might have a winner here. If I hear you correctly, a change to less efficient “vertical” trajectory would indeed have lowered the boost to desired orbit, and a lack of control over that could indeed throw the rocket out of orbit altogether.
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