The Proton rocket which had its launch delayed several weeks in order to repair a faulty gyroscope successfully placed a commercial satellite in orbit today.
Earlier this week there were also two successful Soyuz rockets. For Russia’s aerospace industry, 2014 has definitely ended the year on an up note.
A Soyuz capsule successfully returned three astronauts back from ISS on Monday morning.
A replacement crew is scheduled to launch on November 23.
The Russians today successfully launched a new Progress freighter to ISS.
They were using for the first time an upgraded Soyuz rocket, and all went well.
The investigation into the failure of a Russian Soyuz rocket to place two European Galileo GPS satellites into the correct orbit has found that it was caused by the faulty installation of fuel lines on the Fregat upper stage.
The failure was as simple as clamping together a cold helium line with the hydrazine fuel line, causing the hydrazine to freeze long enough to upset the Fregat stage’s orientation and cause the two satellites’ release into an orbit that is both too low and in the wrong inclination, officials said. One official said the Euro-Russian board of inquiry into the failure discovered that one in four Fregat upper stages at prime contractor Moscow-based NPO Lavochkin had the same faulty installation. ,,,,
Government and officials said the commission is debating how to proceed now that it knows that, as expected, the Fregat failure was not one of design, but of assembly and quality control. [emphasis mine]
In other words, 1 in 4 Fregat upper stations were routinely assembled improperly and no one noticed. The investigation also found that this assembly problem had existed on several past launches but because of the orbital requirements it had fortunately not caused any problems.
I want to emphasize that these kind of sloppy assembly issues have been occurring at a number of different Russian factories and different Russian companies. It seems to be systemic to the entire Russian aerospace industry, and it also appears to be getting worse.
The Russians have established an investigation committee to look into the failure of a solar array to deploy during the most recent Soyuz manned launch.
They are also going to have the array inspected by Russian astronauts during a planned spacewalk in October. Still no word, however, on the capsule’s viability as a lifeboat for the next five months with one failed solar array.
Despite the failure of one solar array to deploy, a Soyuz capsule carrying three astronauts successfully docked with ISS today.
The solar array issue, still unresolved, needs to be figured out, as this Soyuz spacecraft must serve as one of ISS’s lifeboats for the next few months. Without that array the spacecraft will have limited power, and will definitely not be considered the best way home should something go wrong on the station.
One of the two solar panels on the manned Soyuz capsule transporting three astronauts to ISS has failed to deploy.
“According to our data, one of the solar panels is still unable to unfold for reasons unknown. But preliminary data suggest that it will not impede [the spacecraft] from docking to the ISS. They have carried out a maneuver just now which involved all of the spacecraft’s engines, all systems are running smoothly, the crew is OK,” the source in the agency said.
Because they are flying the fast route to ISS a shortage of power is not as critical. However, this failure once again indicates the increasing quality control problems faced by the Russian aerospace industry. In past decades these problems simply did not happen, especially on their manned missions. Now they are happening with increasing frequency.
A Russian Soyuz spacecraft brought three astronauts back to Earth today without problems.
A report today in Russia says that the investigation into the Soyuz launch failure last week that while the Russian Fregat upper stage fired correctly in attempting to place the two Galileo GPS satellites into orbit, its software was programmed for the wrong orbit.
A look at this week’s failed Soyuz launch and the continuing problems Europe has had building its Galileo GPS satellite constellation.
The program has had a series of problems and failures, which this most recent launch only helps highlight.
A Russian-made Soyuz rocket launched from French Guiana for Arianespace has placed two European Galileo GPS satellites into the wrong orbit.
Russianspaceweb suggests that the problem was caused by the rocket’s Russian Fregat upper stage. (Scroll down about halfway to read their report on this launch.)
Multiple independent sources analyzing the situation suggested that the Fregat upper stage had fired its engine for the right duration, however the stage’s orientation in space during the second or both maneuvers had probably been wrong. According to Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and a veteran space historian, the Fregat’s angular orientation error during engine firing could reach as much as 145 degrees.
This failure is a triple whammy. It hits both Arianespace and Russia since the Soyuz was part of a partnership between the two. It also hits Europe’s Galileo GPS satellite, which after many years of development was beginning to move towards full operation.
The competition heats up: A Soyuz rocket successfully launched four communications satellites from French Guiana yesterday.
I know that I repeatedly pound Arianespace for its high costs and lack of profits, but anyone who thinks this European company, in partnership with the Russians, is going to let its competition grab its customers easily is in for a surprise. They are going to fight back, and have the resources to do it.
The battle is on! It should be a lot of fun to watch over the next decade.
More capitalism: Getting the Russian Soyuz capsule prepped to take two tourists around the Moon.
The key detail in this story is not so much that they are beginning to figure out the engineering upgrades necessary to fling a Soyuz capsule around the Moon but that Space Adventures has apparantly finally gotten two passengers who have put down deposits for the lunar flight. For years they have said they had one ticket holder, suspected to be James Cameron, but without a second passenger the flight could not go forward. It now appears that they have gotten a deposit from that second person.
Posted on the road in New Mexico.
The competition heats up: On Monday the Russians announced that they plan to fly two tourists around the Moon by 2017.
This is in conjunction with Space Adventures and the previous tourist flights that have gone to ISS. They say they have two customers willing to pay the $150 million ticket price, but they have also been saying this for years. I am not sure I believe them anymore.
The competition heats up: The Russians have ten launches scheduled in the next three months, using their Proton, Soyuz, Zenit, Rokot, and new Angara rockets.
Half of these launches are for commercial customers.
After a two day delay because of an aborted engine burn, a Soyuz spacecraft docked last night with ISS, bringing its next crew of three to the station.
Though engineers still don’t know why a Soyuz spacecraft carrying three astronauts to ISS was oriented incorrectly — thereby preventing a scheduled engine firing yesterday — they have uploaded new software and have subsequently executed two additional burns successfully.
The engine firings are excellent news, since they demonstrate that the capsule can make the necessary orbital maneuvers to get it to ISS.
An expected engine burn on board the Soyuz capsule taking three astronauts to ISS did not take place as scheduled, forcing at minimum a two day delay in the rendezvous and docking.
[NASA spokesman Rob] Navias said the engine burn was aborted due to a problem with the Soyuz’s attitude control system, but further details were not immediately available. “Right now we don’t understand exactly what happened,” a mission manager at Russian Mission Control told the Soyuz crew late Thursday. Ground controllers planned to download data from the Soyuz and determine whether the glitch was due to a hardware or software problem. [emphasis mine]
Though the astronauts are not in any immediate danger, this is very worrisome. Indications from various other news stories suggest the problem was software related, which in a sense is a good thing. They would still have the option to manually fire their engines to do a manual rendezvous and docking. However, if it isn’t a software issue, and the vagueness of the reports so far makes me wonder about this, they might instead be stranded. Let us hope not.
Update: This report gives a little more information. It appears the capsule itself was not in the right orientation at burn time, and the computer software, sensing this, canceled the burn. If so, the problem might be software (incorrectly gauging the position of the spacecraft) or mechanical (something failing so that the capsule is not oriented correctly). Engineers need to find out which.
A Russian rocket successfully lifted off today from Kazakhstan with the next crew for ISS.
The Soyuz capsule carrying three astronauts successfully docked with ISS late yesterday.
The way is now clear for Cygnus to berth with ISS this weekend.
Posted from New Mexico as we drive on the interstate. (Diane is driving while I surf.)
