August 26, 2013

Three senior managers at Russia’s Khrunichev space company were dismissed over a Proton-M space rocket’s crash last month, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said Friday.

The Khrunichev-made rocket, carrying three satellites for the Glonass positioning system, Russia’s rival to the United States’ GPS, fell to the ground in flames shortly after blastoff on July 2.

Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, determined that the crash occurred because the rocket’s angular velocity sensors were installed upside down, causing the craft to veer off course. The combined cost of the lost rocket and satellites was estimated at $135 million.

Rogozin said Friday that the deputy general director of quality control and management at Khrunichev, Alexander Kobzar, the head of final assembly, Valery Grekov, and the chief of the technical control department, Mikhail Lebedev, had been dismissed for “inappropriate fulfillment of duties during the production and preparation of the Proton-M.”

He added that a special state commission would present a final report on the Proton-M crash “in about a month, sometime after September 20.” The responsibility for the crash among the staff and management of Roscosmos is to be determined after the report is presented to Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

More from this category:
November 10, 2021

Tonight Russian Mission Control Centre may accomplish debris avoidance maneuver aimed at protecting ISS from the debris of Chinese satellite. Roscosmos is scrutinizing the level…

full story
June 6, 2018

Today on June 6, 2018 at 14:12 (Moscow time) at Baikonur cosmodrome from the launchpad № 1 (“Gagarinsky start”) launched a carrier rocket “Soyuz-FG” with…

full story
October 20, 2021

During the space flight of filming crew in the framework of Challenge movie project one-person operation of Soyuz spacecraft was successfully tested. In the future…

full story
June 25, 2013

RIA Novosti – Russian cosmonauts, Expedition 36 flight engineers Fyodor Yurchikhin and Alexander Misurkin have completed their spacewalk that lasted 6 hours and 34 minutes,…

full story
July 1, 2019

At the Baikonur cosmodrome intensive works continues on the upcoming launches of spacecrafts to the International Space Station (ISS), which are scheduled before the end…

full story
March 22, 2019

At the Baikonur cosmodrome preparational works continues for the launch of the “Soyuz-2.1a” launch vehicle with the “Progress MS-11” cargo spacecraft. The operations of refueling…

full story
December 7, 2020

The second test launch of Angara-A5 heavy booster is planned for December 14 morning, – the source reported. Initially the launch was planned for November…

full story
August 20, 2020

The ISS-64 crew is preparing for a flight according to the two-turn scheme of the spacecraft rendezvous with the station According to the two-turn rendezvous…

full story