All fragments of crashed Proton-M collected at Baikonur

All the fragments of the Russian Proton-M carrier rocket that crashed shortly after takeoff have been collected at Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, Tengrinews.kz reports citing the press-service of KazKosmos (Kazakhstan Space Agency). “Full detoxification in the crater’s center was made on July 9-10. Russia’s Investigation Commission at Baikonur has completed identification of the fragments of the crashed rocket. The branch of the Center for Exploitation of Ground Infrastructure Federal State Unitary Company – Yuzhnyi Space Center collected and transported the fragments of the carrier rocket to the platform No.90 of Baikonur cosmodrome,” the message states. Detoxification of the remaining territory of the Proton’s crash site is underway. The total of 13.1 thousand square meters have to be treated. “10 days after the detoxicfiation we will take more samples to define the remaining content of the rocket fuel components in the soil,” KazKosmos added. Russia’s Proton-M carrier rocket [equipped with a DM-3 booster] carrying three Glonass-M navigation satellites crashed right after the lift-off at Kazakhstan-based Baikonur cosmodrome on July 2. The source close to the commission on the accident’s investigation stated that the incident was caused by the human factor: the sensors were improperly connected during the rocket assembly.