mears@hpindda.cup.hp.com (David Mears) (10/23/90)
A couple of weeks (or was that months?) ago, I saw a small sidebar article in the local newspaper about a Soviet heavy lift rocket blowing up early during launch, maybe even on the pad. It wasn't an Energia, but I don't recall what they called it. I seem to recall that much damage was done to the launch tower. The Soviets never actually said that it blew up, but they used a euphemism that essentially meant that. I was expecting some mention and/or discussion of this event to show up here, but nary a word has appeared. Is anyone out there aware of what happened and can fill in some details? Or has noone else heard of this before? (Or does noone care?) David B. Mears Hewlett-Packard Cupertino CA hplabs!hpda!mears mears@hpinddf.cup.hp.com
3001crad@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu (Charles Frank Radley) (10/24/90)
In article <3330033@hpindda.cup.hp.com> mears@hpindda.cup.hp.com (David Mears) writes: >A couple of weeks (or was that months?) ago, I saw a small sidebar >article in the local newspaper about a Soviet heavy lift rocket >blowing up early during launch, maybe even on the pad. It wasn't >an Energia, but I don't recall what they called it. I seem to >recall that much damage was done to the launch tower. The Soviets >never actually said that it blew up, but they used a euphemism that >essentially meant that. >I was expecting some mention and/or discussion of this event to >show up here, but nary a word has appeared. Is anyone out there >aware of what happened and can fill in some details? Or has noone >else heard of this before? (Or does noone care?) >David B. Mears >Hewlett-Packard >Cupertino CA The rocket which exploded was a Zenit, which is their most "reliable" booster and the one they are currently trying to sell commercially. At least by admitting their failures they will get credibility in their reliability statistics and thus make it easier to get insurance from western brokers. The explosion took place at Baikonur. I heard somewhere that the payload was an Elint spacecraft I would be interested to hear how soon after liftoff it exploded, and whether it was destroyed by range safety or acutally exploded. also, which stage exploded, and what was the cause....... :
clj@ksr.com (Chris Jones) (10/24/90)
In article <3330033@hpindda.cup.hp.com>, mears@hpindda (David Mears) writes: >A couple of weeks (or was that months?) ago, I saw a small sidebar >article in the local newspaper about a Soviet heavy lift rocket >blowing up early during launch > >I was expecting some mention and/or discussion of this event to >show up here, but nary a word has appeared. I posted an article about this in sci.space, and Jonathan's Space Report also made reference to it. You should not expect discussion of it here, so I've redirected any followups to sci.space. -- Chris Jones clj@ksr.com {world,uunet,harvard}!ksr!clj
gregc@cimage.com (Greg Cronau) (10/25/90)
In article <3330033@hpindda.cup.hp.com> mears@hpindda.cup.hp.com (David Mears) writes: >A couple of weeks (or was that months?) ago, I saw a small sidebar >article in the local newspaper about a Soviet heavy lift rocket >blowing up early during launch, maybe even on the pad. It wasn't Was this article about a recent event or historic event? Around 1967-68 the soviets were working on a booster which we designated the "G-1". From satellite photos it became clear that a *major* explosion occurred on the pad. No G-1 was ever launched. The G-1 was on about the same scale as a Saturn V. gregc@cimage.com
smb@ulysses.att.com (Steven Bellovin) (10/30/90)
In article <1990Oct25.065253.20469@cimage.com>, gregc@cimage.com (Greg Cronau) writes: > In article <3330033@hpindda.cup.hp.com> mears@hpindda.cup.hp.com (David Mears) writes: > >A couple of weeks (or was that months?) ago, I saw a small sidebar > >article in the local newspaper about a Soviet heavy lift rocket > >blowing up early during launch, maybe even on the pad. It wasn't > > Was this article about a recent event or historic event? > Around 1967-68 the soviets were working on a booster which we designated the > "G-1". From satellite photos it became clear that a *major* explosion occurred > on the pad. No G-1 was ever launched. The G-1 was on about the same scale as > a Saturn V. There were two recent articles about Soviet booster explosions. The first article was about an abortive launch of one of their biggest boosters, one whose services they hope to market to Western companies seeking satellite launches. That one is new. The other article for the first time supplied some details on a disastrous explosion (long-known in the West) that killed hundreds of people, including Marshall Nedelin (?), who was in charge of the whole Soviet space program. James Oberg has covered that one fairly thoroughly in his books. As I recall his explanation, the rocket didn't launch -- the first stage just didn't fire. Technicians went out to see what was wrong. They didn't realize that the second stage was ignited by a timer activated by the launch command -- and that that part of the launch sequence worked... The engines triggered, on schedule, while the second stage was still atop a fully-fueled first stage. (Btw, the AP story on the recent article quoted Oberg as saying that they released too few technical details to add anything to what was already known; the newsworthiness was that a Soviet paper had printed it.)
p515dfi@mpirbn.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de (Daniel Fischer) (10/30/90)
In article <1990Oct25.065253.20469@cimage.com> gregc@dgsi.UUCP (Greg Cronau/10000) writes: >In article <3330033@hpindda.cup.hp.com> mears@hpindda.cup.hp.com (David Mears) writes: >>A couple of weeks (or was that months?) ago, I saw a small sidebar >>article in the local newspaper about a Soviet heavy lift rocket >>blowing up early during launch, maybe even on the pad. ... > >Was this article about a recent event or historic event? It happened on Oct.4, 1990: a Zenith booster with a classified payload exploded seconds after liftoff. According to AP Network News the Soviets (who released the info one week later) believe it was a production fault, not a design problemand that thus the effect on their space capability is minimal. In Space News, however, Oberg called it a big setback: the Zenith is identical to the boosters of the Energia - the incident might make the Soviet planners think it's wise to stop flying Energia (and Buran, which nobody needs anyway) completely.