Baikonur Launches Will Resume This Month, Proton Grounded until 2000 By Anatoly Zak Staff Writer posted: 11:59 am ET 09 November 1999 ET
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Launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome will resume this month, lifting a ban in place after a Proton rocket crashed last month, an official from the Russian Aerospace Agency (RASA) said.
RASA spokesman Vecheslav Mikhailechenko said that a Soyuz rocket carrying four Globalstar satellites, previously scheduled for a November 14 launch, would take off from Baikonur on November 22 or 23.
Mikhailechenko said that a document being prepared by the Kazakh and Russian governments in the wake of the October 27 Proton rocket crash will, in part, establish procedures for handling any future launch accidents. The agreement will emphasize that only the particular booster involved in a crash will be grounded.
The October crash is the second involving a Proton rocket this year. The first crash, on July 4, resulted in a ban of all launches from Baikonur, Russia's main launch facility. This ban temporarily prevented the Russians from launching a re-supply ship to the Mir space station.
The Kazakh-Russian agreement, scheduled to be signed on November 17, will effectively free Russia to launch any non-Proton boosters from Baikonur.
Meanwhile, Mikhailechenko confirmed that the investigation of the Proton crash continues, and this year's remaining scheduled launches will probably be delayed until 2000.
"Conclusions which [were] made after the first Proton accident in July have to be reconsidered," Mikhailechenko said. Investigators now believe that production violations at the Voronezh factory, which produces Proton's second and third-stage engines, may have caused the crash.
The RD-0210 engines, which powered both ill-fated Proton boosters, were built in 1993. Production at the factory had just resumed after many months of delays due to lack of funding. Two other Proton rockets also equipped with the engines from the same batch have successfully delivered their payloads, Mikhailechenko said. By now, all engines from that batch have been used.
Mikhailechenko would not speculate about a future Proton launch schedule. He noted, however, that the launch of the Zvezda module, a crucial element of the International Space Station, is not likely to be affected because it was already delayed until next year. However, Nurlan Utembayev, deputy head of the National Space Committee,
told Reuters the Kazakh ban on Russian rocket launches could delay the arrival of the module.
Mikhailechenko also said that when launches resume, Proton rockets carrying payloads for the Russian Federal Space Program will have a priority over commercial launches.
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