Spectacular Proton rocket crash (video)

COOL!! Bangin' shockwave!

Hi Astro,

From what I understand the Russian's don't have a self destruct like our rockets.

They cannot shut the engines down until 40 or 45 seconds so that theoretically the rocket will fly

away from the launch pad. Than the engines can be shut down.

That seems like a breathtakingly bad idea in situations like this. RSS is not a new concept at all, but then again neither is the ability to roll the rocket onto the correct heading mid-flight, an ability they didn't have until very recently. I'm still shocked though.

I was wondering why they did not blow it up that as is crashed.

On a side note wallops canceled todays double launch again, another try tomorrow [link to www.nasa.gov]

My first thought when watching the rocket veer hard right was why are the engines still running?

Found out later that it was to protect the launch pad. I guess it worked, if they shut

the engines down at 4 seconds when the trouble started the launch pad would of been destroyed.

However they take a big risk if the out of control rocket heads for people or buildings.

Please, explain this.

Thanks.

Here is another video of the crash. This is the closest one yet.

I was referring to this new development of the Soyuz rocket:

"With its new digital control system, Soyuz 2-1A can perform more flexible Ascent Missions. The old Soyuz Launchers had to be rotated on their launch tables to the correct launch azimuth angle since their control system was not able to perform a Roll Maneuver early in the flight. With the new digital control System, the launch table does not need to be rotated since the digital control system supports three-axis vehicle control from the point of liftoff."
[link to www.spaceflight101.com]

Remember during the shuttle launches when the astronauts used to call "roll program" early in the ascent as the vehicle rolled to the correct launch heading? Yeah, Soyuz couldn't do that. They had to rotate the entire rocket and launch pad onto the launch heading before launch.

[link to rbth.ru]

Crash caused by premature liftoff.

"The analysis of the telemetry data has shown that the rocket's liftoff occurred nearly half a second ahead of time. Hence, the engines had not reached the necessary thrust capacity by this time,"

They have been crying sabotage for well over a year.

This was carrying for the second time the last three sats. needed to complete the Russian global GPS system.

Something is funny...


Snip; The Tuesday accident is the second unsuccessful launch of a Proton-M rocket carrying satellites for Russia's flagship Glonass positioning system in the last three years.

In December 2010, a Proton-M veered off course and crashed in the Pacific Ocean, after engineers overloaded the rocket with fuel, said International Launch Services, the U.S. firm that markets commercial Proton launches.

Another Proton-M mission was unsuccessful in December 2010 after a failure in the rocket's upper-stage Briz engine. A control system glitch caused the loss of a Proton-M in August 2011, while complications with a Briz engine led to the loss of another Proton mission a year later.

[link to www.themoscowtimes.com]
The Moscow Times