MOSCOW The recent failure of a Ukrainian-made Tsiklon (Cyclone) 3 rocket carrying six Russian telecommunications satellites likely was caused by a malfunction of the vehicles third-stage control system, a Russian defense official told Spacenews.com Jan. 10.
The official, who serves with Russias Strategic Missile Force (RVSN), said a Russian investigation commission set up to probe the
"There was a failure in the control system which led to an emergency shutdown of the third-stages engine" roughly 367 seconds into the flight from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia, the official said.
The commission, led by experts from RVSN and the Russian Aviation and Space Agency, "made this preliminary conclusion" Jan. 9, the official said. However, it will take several more weeks to complete the probe and prepare a final report with the help of the Production Association Yuzhmash and Yuzhnoye Design Bureau, which designed and manufactured the rocket, respectively. Both organizations are located in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine.
Reached by phone, Yuzhnoye Design Bureau spokesman Yuri Alekseyenko confirmed that the control system caused the vehicles third stage to shut down prematurely.
Alekseyenko said it remains unclear exactly what caused the control system to issue the shutdown command. He said the control system, built by the Kiev Radio Plant of Kiev, Ukraine, with some components supplied by Russian defense companies, could have been defective or too old. The rocket was assembled some 10 years ago, he said.
Another possibility, he said, is that the rocket veered off at an angle of more than 15 degrees from its designated trajectory. That would automatically trigger the control system to issue an abort order.
Alekseyenko said the Dec. 27 failure was only the fifth in 117 Tsiklon 3 launches since 1977.
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