4-5 Proton-M carrier rockets will be launched from Baikonur before the end of 2013 05 августа 2013, 14:43

©RIA Novosti

4-5 Proton-M carrier rockets will be launched from Baikonur before the end of 2013, RIA Novosti reports, citing Vladimir Popovkin, Russia’s Roskosmos National Space Agency, as saying. A Russian Proton-M rocket exploded ten seconds after launch from Baikonur on July 2nd, destroying three Glonass (Russian GPS) satellites it was carrying. An investigation of the accident soon revealed that the cause of the Proton-M failure was the installation of a sensor upside down. “All the rumors of some of the specialists responsible for installation of the sensor supposedly evading cooperation with the investigators are far from being true. One of them was hospitalized due to ill health”, Mr. Popovkin said. The rocket carried 600 tonnes of kerosene, heptyl and amyl which are highly poisonous components of rocket fuel, said the head of the Kazakh space agency, Talgat Musabayev, following the wreckage. Russia’s Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev officially reprimanded the head of the Federal Space Agency for incompetence August 2. In July the the Audit Chamber had criticized the space agency for launching only 47 percent of Russia's required number of satellites into orbit in 2010-2012.

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