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Another Russian Failure

31 Comments

There is clearly a serious QC problem in the Russian program. A Proton just suffered another Briz-M upper-stage failure, and delivered a Mexican comm sat into Sibero-stationary orbit, which isn’t particularly useful.

And yet, the House appropriators cut the commercial crew budget. Again.

[Update a while later]

The Russians have been averaging two-and-a-third launch failures per year for the past six years. Also worth noting that the trend is getting worse. That’s two launch failures in the past three weeks.

[Update a few minutes later]

Whoa! Two failures in one day. Apparently the reboost engines on the Progress currently at ISS failed to fire as well.

[Late-afternoon update]

Here’s a fairly comprehensive story on today’s launch failure from Stephen Clark at Spaceflightnow.

31 thoughts on “Another Russian Failure”

  1. It has been a systemic problem in their military industrial complex since like forever. They had a string of failures with their Bulava SLBM a couple of years back. As or Briz-M it has been problematic several times. They plan to stop using Briz-M eventually and replace it for a LOX/LH2 powered upper stage but it remains to be seen when it will happen.

  2. Their list of causes for failures is rather diverse. In the past it’s been a faulty valve, something installed upside down, or even not enough fuel in the fuel tank.

    When does that new docking adapter go up? Should be sometime this year.

    1. Their design is not made to prevent assembly errors (like those parts you mentioned which could be mounted either way), they do not dedicate enough money for test rigs (N1, Bulava), and they are really poor at QA.
      The Kalashnikov and the PPSh were designed to be manufactured by poorly skilled labor but it seems like some things either cannot be designed like that or later Soviet/Russian designs just don’t know how to do it.
      They also used to have really crappy and obsolete machine tools and working methods. I wonder if all that oil money funneled to their military-technological complex solved this issue or not. I kinda doubt it.

  3. I see SpaceX planning on two launches just a week apart in July. Is that (a) accurate, (b) noteworthy? They appear to be at different pads… but some of the other turnaround times for recent launches seem noteworthy to me. Were they at the same pads?

    And how fast -should- SpaceX be able to refurbish the Dragon from the Pad Abort? Is it aimed at a museum, or preparing for another mission? How well do the SuperDraco’s “seal up” before the exposure to sea water?

    All leading to the question: Well, does SpaceX -have- a crew-capable Dragon they could put on on a rocket after bumping something to put it there?

    1. There’s no docking adaptor yet, so they’d have to berth it, but that’s not a big problem. I don’t know where they are with life support.

      1. The 1st commercial crew docking adapter is going up with the very next Dragon flight (June 13th?), so berthing will not be an issue for long. Two flight later the 2nd adapter will be flown.

        There has also been suggestions from SpaceX that they might fly their orbital test flight (unmanned) before the in-flight abort test. This would presumably happen towards the end of next year.

          1. I thought so too, and it is possible that there was a misunderstanding. But the two flights are not necessarily linked in that specific order.

            The inflight abort booster was undergoing tanking tests at VAFB this last few months, so it appears to be ready.

          3. “I’d like to understand what the pacing item is that keeps them from flying crew before 2017. ECLSS? Crew interface for FCS?”

            More likely the pacing items deal with testing, document production, and government reviews.

      2. I assume the main problem is that this has not been installed on ISS yet. Any timetables on when it is going to happen? Have not heard of this for a bit.

        1. The IDA docking adapter arrives on the next dragon flight, scheduled for June this summer.

  5. Is a Dragon V1 capable of providing a reboost? Even if it has the delta V margin given return requirements, it may not be docked at a suitable port for the dynamics.

    Certainly the V2 could do it.

  6. Minor correction. The Breeze-M upper stage & Mexican comsat did not reach orbit but are believed to have burned up on re-entry. According to what I’ve read. You might want to correct your OP.

    Dave

      1. Yeah, when I heard about the Briz rocket, I wondered if the problem was the removal of the launch shroud . . . (sorry, people, sorry) . . .

    2. My understanding is that it was the Proton third stage that failed, not the Briz-M. They never got as far as Briz-M ignition.

  7. Wonder what the atmosphere is like in the astronaut office these days. Knowing your life is less important than a few hundred jobs for a year at Marshall must bring up some very existential questions. I can’t imagine morale is terribly high.

    1. It happened before this launch, but Sarah Brightman just cancelled her trip to the ISS. She’s been training in Russia since January. An alternate will take her place. Officially this is due to family reasons, but now I have to wonder.

      1. Bigelow needs to put one his modules attached to the ISS and the US needs to start letting tourist rides into to the station using their ports.

        1. Yes, that would be cool but NASA isn’t a business. But perhaps they could be convinced to add some quarters to house more astronauts. Someone could direct them to one of Rand’s posts discussing the ability to do more non-station keeping work with the addition of just one or a couple astronauts.

  8. This harks back to Margaret Lazarus Dean’s interview, where she objects to the idea that private enterprise can do things better, and the government always “mucks things up.” SpaceX has launched 18 Falcon 9s with no main mission failures (a second stage restart failure did result in placing an Orbcomm secondary payload into an unusable orbit on CRS-1). During that string of launches, the Falcon 9 has undergone significant evolution as well.

    Out of the last 18 Proton launches, three have been complete failures. And this is a rocket design that has been flown 404 times, failing 67 times. That’s a 16.58% overall failure rate, with the past 18 flights having a 16.67% failure rate. This suggests that they have never done very well with Proton, and that it isn’t much worse than it had ever been. It also shows that private enterprise can definitely outperform a government.

    1. a second stage restart failure did result in placing an Orbcomm secondary payload into an unusable orbit on CRS-1

      If I remember correctly, it wasn’t a restart failure, because they never tried to restart the engine, because NASA said they weren’t allowed to in case it passed too close to ISS. Also, didn’t the Orbcomm payload still achieve most of its intended testing goals on that flight?

      1. Yes, that’s correct. The second stage didn’t fail to relight; it wasn’t allowed to per mission rules. The only actual failure on that flight was one of the engines on the first stage.

        Apparently, because the second stage expended more fuel than intended during its first burn, there was a slightly increased chance that a second burn would have caused it to pass too close to the ISS. I don’t really blame NASA for their caution in this case. Rules are rules, and all parties agreed upon them before launch.

    2. The Orbcomm failure happened when the Falcon 9 experienced an engine failure during the first stage burn. The other engines burned longer so the vehicle reached orbit (something few other boosters can do under similar conditions) but it was lower than desired for the secondary payload. The second stage that failed to relight was on a separate mission after the primary payload had already been released.

  9. The Progress reboost failure is unsettling. ISS can remain in orbit for a long time (depending on the solar cycle), but it can’t be moved for collision avoidance. It has had to do so about 16 times during its life, though no maneuvers have been performed in the last 2 1/2 years, apparently. They are unpredictable events, however, and I would expect one sometime. If they can’t solve this Progress problem, they have no alternative. ATV was able to do reboost, but ATV-5 was the last of the series. This could be trouble.

    2. According to this article, the Progress successfully reboosted the ISS today.

      The orbit of the International Space Station (ISS) has been successfully reboosted by the Progress M-26M cargo vehicle on Monday, after initially refusing to start its engines. The initial reboost attempt occurred just hours before an unrelated Proton-M launch failed, as the Russian space agency struggles to overcome a string of failures that included the recent loss of the Progress M-27M vehicle.

  10. This article struck me as nuts:
    http://spaceflightnow.com/2015/05/18/spacex-has-aggressive-schedule-leading-up-to-crew-flights/

    SpaceX has done one abort test and will do a second in 2015. Unmanned test in 2016, and ready to go manned in 2017. Sounds reasonable, if “aggressive” (quoting the article).

    Boeing is also on track for 2017. How? Pad abort test in 2017, then unmanned, then manned mission in July 2017.

    Sounds completely insane, assuming they mean it. Or sounds like they don’t mean it, but they’re getting four billion dollars.

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