May 20, 2015

It is too early to replace proton with Angara since this is a new rocket and it didn’t have enough time to accumulate positive flight history – Russian Academy of Cosmonautics named after Tsiolkovsky Andrei Ionin believes.

On Monday Russian Vice Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin demanded to abandon Proton and start using Angara instead.

“Proton is not the source of the problem, since it is the problem of the industry. It reminds me a story of not so long ago. When some people were saying “let’s abandon Bulava (submarine-launched ballistic missile) since it is falling”. But if there is a production fault no matter what the rocket is it will remain a fault. To my mind it is too early to replace Proton with any other heavy booster yet. Though it is inevitable we shouldn’t be in a hurry: heavy Angara was launched just once. To accept it into operation about 15-20 successful test launches are needed and it takes several years”, – Ionin stated.

On May 16 during the insertion of mexSat-1 satellite there was an off-nominal situation in the course of Proton-M third stage operation. The attempt to orbit Mexican satellite ended up a failure, the satellite was lost.

More from this category:
November 6, 2024

The Soyuz-2.1b rocket was launched from the Vostochny Cosmodrome, located in the heart of the Amur taiga. This cosmodrome has become one of the record…

full story
August 7, 2019

The “Proton-M” heavy-class rocket, launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on August 6, 2019 at 00:56 (Moscow time), successfully put into the calculated orbit the spacecraft…

full story
June 11, 2013

Angara heavy booster is to be forwarded to Plesetsk cosmodrome by late 2013, – Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Dmitry Rogozin stated. “In…

full story
September 19, 2024

The Russian Kondor-FKA radar satellite No. 2 has been delivered to the Vostochny Cosmodrome ahead of its launch. Experts will soon send it to the…

full story
February 3, 2020

In accordance with the decision of the State Commission this morning, February 3, 2020, the “Soyuz-2.1b” launch vehicle with the “Fregat-M” upper stage and OneWeb…

full story
April 10, 2014

Soyuz-U booster with Progress M-23M cargo vehicle was launched to the ISS from Baikonur spaceport on April 9 at 19.26 Moscow time, – Roscosmos representative…

full story
May 13, 2013

According to RIA Novosti, fifteen aircraft and six rescue vehicles will be deployed to ensure the safe recovery of the Soyuz TMA-07M landing capsule when…

full story
July 24, 2019

On the night of July 22, 2019 from the Khrunichev Space Center (part of Roscosmos State Corporation) the parts of the “Proton-M” launch vehicle (the…

full story