Proton launch failure, all Protons grounded

[Dr Mordrid]

Here we go again....sources say another upper stage failure.

Over the last 5 years at least one Proton per year has failed, for a total of 6.* All payloads were for Russian missions, this Express-AM4R being a large commsat built in Europe by Astrium.

http://rt.com/news/159304-proton-roc...ed-kazakhstan/

Russian Proton rocket carrying advanced satellite crashes - report

A Russian Proton rocket with an advanced satellite on board crashed outside of Kazakhstan's territory after lift-off, RIA Novosti cited a source as saying.

There are so far no reports of damage or casualties.

All other launches of Proton-type rockets will be halted at Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan until the reason for the crash is determined, a source told RIA Novosti.

There was an emergency engines shutdown on the 540th second following the launch, the Russian Federal Space Agency said, as quoted by Itar-Tass.

The Proton rocket, carrying an advanced Express-AM4R satellite, was launched on schedule from Baikonur on Friday. The Express-AM4R would have been Russias most advanced and powerful satellite.

[Fat Tone]

Of course that's not good, but further down the article it states Russia had 32 out of 82 space launched worldwide. So if they have 1/32 failures, ~3%, how does that compare to global statistics?

[Dr Mordrid]

The big problem is that most all of those are medium class launchers which don't have the profit margin of the heavies like Proton. For it they have 6 failures in 5 years, which over time gives Proton a failure rate approaching 20%.

With Falcon Heavy, Ariane 6 and India's new heavy launcher becoming factors this will put a hurt on their large class commsat launching business.

Worse, it was another in a series of upper stage failures, clearly a quality control problem, and the wreckage came down in China.

[Umfriend]

How do you calculate a failure rate (of 20%)?

[Dr Mordrid]

By recent launches. Over its entire history it has a fail rate of 11.54%, 45 fails in 390 attempts which is excessive. The average is 1-2%. For 2012 it was tied with Iran's Safir as the least reliable launcher.

In most failures it's been the upper stages that fail due to misprogramming, debris in.the plumbing or faulty components, but in a launch last year the first stage gyros were installed upside-down. After launch it rose to a few hundred meters, inverted and screwed itself into the ground.

Edit:

Roscosmos chief Oleg Ostapenko says the 3rd stage engine failed at T+545 seconds (T+9:05), but there were already problems 20 seconds before that - one of the 4 vernier engines started to fail.

These engines share a turbopump, and back in the late 1990's a similar problem was traced to a foreign material getting into the turbopump.

That failed launch caused concerns that one of the first ISS modules may not get up on schedule, causing the US to build a backup that's still in storage.

Chinese websites are reporting multiple fireballs, and objects falling in northern Heilongjiang province, near the town of Shuangyang and the the city of Qiqihar (47.55 N, 125.6 E)