International Launch Services is returning to flight on 15 September with a mission for SES after rooting out the cause of July’s Proton rocket crash.
The company’s Failure Review Oversight Board (FROB) agreed with an investigation run by the…
International Launch Services is returning to flight on 15 September with a mission for SES after rooting out the cause of July’s Proton rocket crash.
The company’s Failure Review Oversight Board (FROB) agreed with an investigation run by the Russian government, which put the disaster down to three sensors being incorrectly installed.
Those sensors affected the Proton’s yaw rotation, causing the rocket to turn on its axis shortly after takeoff before exploding in a fireball that blew up three Russian navigation satellites.
All Protons were grounded while investigations into the Federal mission failure got underway. The Astra 2E satellite for SES will be the first launch now this ban has been lifted as it was next in line with ILS, which markets Protons to commercial customers.
ILS said today it was still scheduling the remainder of its near-term manifest for 2013, which had included commercial launches for the likes of the UK’s Inmarsat, Russia’s RSCC and SiriusXM of the US. Previously there were also plans for a small number of Federal Proton missions this year.
John Palmé, vice president of programmes and operations at ILS, said: “We very much appreciate the time, effort and participation of our customers, the insurance underwriters and technical experts in the FROB process. They worked tirelessly with us to ensure that the review was conducted thoroughly.
“As we work towards the return to flight of the Proton vehicle, we thank all of our customers for their continued support.”
ILS had only returned to flight in March before the latest Proton failure hit, after the rocket failed to place the Yamal-402 bird for Russia’s Gazprom Space Systems late last year.
It had previously been working towards launching one commercial mission per month until August to clear up the backlog before the crash in early July, with potentially two more slated for Q4.
Last week Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister lambasted Federal space agency Roscosmos over the failures, calling for structural reform of the country’s space industry.
The criticism came shortly after Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev officially reprimanded the head of the agency, Vladimir Popovkin, although that was not related to the most recent Proton failure.
