Russian investigators, having pinpointed the cause of a December 2012 launch failure, have cleared the Proton rocket to resume commercial launches in March.
Russian investigators, having pinpointed the cause of a December 2012 launch failure, have cleared the Proton rocket to resume commercial launches in March.
It is interesting that this failure of the Proton’s Briz-M upper stage was not related to two previous failures of that same upper stage. It is also interesting that the article does not describe what actions have been taken to correct the problem.
If I was a future Proton launch customer I would be very concerned. Three launch failures all related to the Briz-M upper stage, and all from different causes. This appears to suggest some fundamental problems with the stage itself, or with the company that manufactures it.
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Russian investigators, having pinpointed the cause of a December 2012 launch failure, have cleared the Proton rocket to resume commercial launches in March.
It is interesting that this failure of the Proton’s Briz-M upper stage was not related to two previous failures of that same upper stage. It is also interesting that the article does not describe what actions have been taken to correct the problem.
If I was a future Proton launch customer I would be very concerned. Three launch failures all related to the Briz-M upper stage, and all from different causes. This appears to suggest some fundamental problems with the stage itself, or with the company that manufactures it.
My July fund-raising campaign for 2021 has now ended. Thank you all for your donations and subscriptions. While this year’s campaign was not as spectacular as last year’s, it was the second best July campaign since I began this website.
And if you have not yet donated or subscribed, and you think what I write here is worth your support, you can still do so. I depend on this support to remain independent and free to write what I believe, without any pressure from others. Nor do I accept advertisements, or use oppressive social media companies like Google, Twitter, and Facebook. I depend wholly on the direct support of my readers.
If you choose to help, you can contribute via Patreon or PayPal. To use Patreon, go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation. For PayPal click one of the following buttons:
If Patreon or Paypal don't work for you, you can support Behind The Black directly by sending your donation by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman, to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
Sounds like a Quality Control problem – when maunfacturing is inconsistent & problems come from multiple sources, the suspicion is that their system may not be under good control. Sounds to me like they may need systems in place to ensure mfg specs & tolerance limits are consisterntly applied & adhered to…
That’s assuming the original specs are adequate. QC can only control to the existing specifications. Given that the failures are all from disparate sources may indicate a QC problem, but at this point I’d be looking at the original engineering.
Yep, that’s a definite possibility as well. But wasn’t that design previously reasonably successful ?? I thought that one’s been around awhile & had successful launches earlier, which would indicate the design itself may be sound, but when sudden mutiple problems crop up, it might lead us to believe specs were not adhered to or other quality issues were ignored. I have no experience in engineering or aerosapce, but work in a quality environment & that’s kind of been the case with things we’ve seen. Another possibility – co’s that contract out some of their work & substitute cheaper, lower-quality components suddenly run into trouble. Again, I’ll defer to the experts in the field, but similar quailty issues seem to crop up in almost any kind of manufacturing environment…