Roscosmos Official Confirms Proton Sensors Upside Down, Flights May Resume in September
Despite skepticism from a Russian Deputy Prime Minister, an official with Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, confirms that the recent Proton-M launch failure was caused by sensors that were installed upside down.
Alexander Lopatin, a deputy director of Roscosmos, is quoted today by Russia’s official news agency, Itar-Tass, as confirming earlier reports that angular rate sensors were installed “head over heels.” Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin disputed the earlier reports saying that installation of the sensors was virtually foolproof.
Nonetheless, that is what happened according to Lopatin. “The cause was an industrial process violation, the human factor,” he said. The six angular rate sensors themselves were fine and passed all tests, but three of them were installed “head over heels” by workers at Khrunichev, the rocket’s manufacturer.
The Proton-M rocket crashed spectacularly 17 seconds after launch on July 1 Eastern Daylight Time (July 2 local time at the launch site in Kazakhstan). Three Russian GLONASS navigation satellites were destroyed.
Lopatin added that Proton rocket launches could resume in September.
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