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RUSSIA-ACCIDENT-SPACE-LEAD
Soyuz launch failure due to ‘deformation’ during assembly: Russian
official
KOROLYOV, Russia, Nov 1, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – A Russian rocket that carried two
people to space last month failed and sent the craft back to Earth because of
“deformation” of a part that was made during assembly at the cosmodrome, a
space official said Thursday.
“The cause of a non-standard separation (of the rocket’s second stage)”
was a “deformation” of a part during assembly at the Baikonur cosmodrome,
said Oleg Skorobogatov who headed the Russian commission probing the
accident.
He said this caused a booster rocket from the first stage to malfunction
and hit a fuel tank which “led to the loss of stabilisation” and triggered an
emergency landing.
The Russian-American crew of two had to withstand a ballistic descent back
to Kazakhstan on October 11, but both emerged from their landing craft safe
and sound.
Executive director of Russia’s Roscosmos space agency Sergei Krikalyov
said Wednesday that the root of the problem was a sensor that indicated the
separation of the first two stages of the Soyuz rocket.
Skorobogatov, who heads TsNIIMash, a Russian research institute
specialising in spacecraft and missile development, said the commission ruled
out that the problem happened at a production facility.
Russia is the only country currently able to send astronauts to the
International Space Station, and the accident caused it to suspend all
launches until getting to the bottom of the rare failed manned launch.
However the safe descent to Earth by cosmonaut Aleksey Ovchinin and US
astronaut Nick Hague led both Roscosmos and NASA to stand by the Soyuz system
as reliable.
The Soyuz “remains the most reliable rocket,” said Dmitry Baranov, the
acting director of Russia’s Energia rocket and space corporation.
Following the investigation by the space experts, “appropriate law
enforcement authorities” will work out who is guilty of the assembly mistake,
said Roscosmos deputy head Alexander Lopatin.
“Every accident has a name and surname (of the guilty party),” he said.
BSS/AFP/RY/1615 hrs