Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency, said in a statement published on its website that it would lift the ban on preparations for launches of Proton-M rockets with Breeze-M boosters.
On 17 August, Russian satellite operator RSCC’s Express-AM4 satellite…
Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency, said in a statement published on its website that it would lift the ban on preparations for launches of Proton-M rockets with Breeze-M boosters.
On 17 August, Russian satellite operator RSCC’s Express-AM4 satellite failed to enter geosynchronous orbit after it was launched on a Proton-M rocket by launch services provider International Launch Services (ILS).
In the statement, Roscosmos said an independent investigation commission has now identified the causes of the failure.
“The Commission has concluded that, in the process of formalising the Breeze-M operating timeline, the time interval to manipulate the gyro platform into position was made unduly short. This resulted in an off-nominal orientation of the Breeze-M and, as the consequence, in injecting the spacecraft into an off-design orbit,” Roscosmos explained.
In an email to SatelliteFinance, an ILS spokeswoman said that the company will also conduct its own review within the next few days via its Failure Review Oversight Board.
As space authorities were scrambling to investigate the issue, there were concerns that the Proton failure might have a huge knock-on effect on future launches this year. In its statement, the Russian space agency said that it would soon draft a new schedule for launches for the rest of 2011.
Before the failure, ten Proton-M launches for commercial satellites had been scheduled before the end of the year.
The Russian space industry experienced another failure soon after the Proton-M incident. On 24 August, a Soyuz-U rocket carrying a Progress cargo capsule failed to reach the ISS. This rocket has a design similar to the Soyuz-FG that had been set to launch crew to the ISS in September.
In a statement on 29 August, Roscosmos said that the return to Earth of the manned spacecraft Soyuz TMA-21, scheduled for 8 September, would be delayed, as well as the next manned mission to ISS, Soyuz TMA-22, originally scheduled for 22 September.
