An
unmanned Russian rocket carrying three navigation satellites - worth US$200
million - has crashed shortly after lift-off from the Russian-leased Baikonur
launch facility in Kazakhstan.There were no reported injuries.State-run
Rossiya-24 television showed footage of the Proton-M booster rocket veering off
course seconds after lift-off. It fell apart in flames in the air and crashed
in a big ball of fire near the launch pad.Launch facility personnel who were in
bunkers at the site when the rocket lifted off survived.Interfax said Kazakh
emergency authorities were considering evacuating nearby towns in the sparsely
populated area because of the potential health threat from toxic rocket fuel
burning at the crash site.The estimated loss from the three satellites, meant
for Russia's troubled Glonass satellite navigation system, was about US$200
million, Rossiya-24 reported. The state-run RIA news agency said the cause
could have been a problem with the engine or the guidance system.Russia is
increasing space spending and plans to send a probe to the moon in 2015, but
the pioneering programme that put the first man in space in 1961 has been
plagued in recent years by setbacks, including botched satellite launches and a
failed attempt to send a probe to a moon of Mars. Sending a cloud of
highly toxic orange fumes toward the Kazakh city of Baikonur only 50
miles away.Fears that the toxic cloud would waft into Baikonur were eased later
in the day, however, after heavy rains dispersed the fumes.Photographs posted
online had shown the ominous cloud stretching over buildings near the launching
pad, and residents of Baikonur, population 70,000, had been instructed to stay
indoors and refrain from using air conditioners.The Proton-M rocket rose just
above its launching tower at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, wobbled and then tipped
over into the desert in a ball of fire.The short flight on Tuesday was the
fourth Proton failure in three years, and it was sure to raise safety questions
among NASA officials and Western commercial clients of Russia’s space services.In
recent years, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has relied on
Russia to provide transportation for American astronauts headed to the
International Space Station. But those spaceflights have been powered by a
Soyuz rocket that has a far stronger safety record.The Russian space agency did
not immediately offer an explanation for the crash.There were no reported
injuries at the site of the accident, an area that Russia rents for rocket
launchings. But the short flight, instead of a journey to space, made for one
of the most prominent rocket disasters in Russia’s space program in recent
years.“According to the preliminary estimates from the Russian side, there is
no destruction and there are no casualties,” the Kazakh space agency,
KazCosmos, said in a statement, according to Reuters.In video of the crash
broadcast by Rossiya 24, a Russian state television channel, the satellites
appeared to break apart from the nose cone as the rocket tumbled to earth. The
station estimated their value at $200 million.In the live broadcast, the
announcer noted as the rocket leaned over and flew horizontally, “It seems
something is not right.”The announcer goes on to repeat that “something is not
right,” and added that “the rocket is now heading toward the ground and
breaking apart in the air — and an explosion.”The crash was another setback for
the Proton rocket, a workaday booster for the Russian space program that is
used for commercial and military payloads.The most pressing concern was the
orange cloud, which owed its color to heptyl, a highly toxic type of fuel known
as UDMH outside of Russia, that is used
on the larger stages of the rocket. Kazakh authorities were cited by the
Interfax news agency as saying they might evacuate towns, though the region is
sparsely populated.The Proton is one of the largest rockets used today,
weighing 700 tons on the launching pad, according to a reference book published
by the Russian space agency. A fully loaded Boeing 747, by comparison, weighs
about 400 tons. Most of the rocket’s weight is fuel.Even after successful
launchings, herders have found dead cows underneath flight paths,
killed by eating grass that came into contact with jettisoned rocket stages
contaminated with unburned heptyl.
You can watch the video here
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