Proton M Rocket

Russia's Proton M Rocket To Remain Grounded For 3.5 Months

By Brid-Aine Parnell

Russia’s Proton M rocket will remain grounded for another three and a half months, the country’s deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin said this weekend.

The heavy carrier was last used nearly two months ago, when it was supposed to launch an International Space Station cargoship, but blew up just minutes after blastoff.

Russian officials have since said that the explosion was caused by a fault in the third stage engine of the rocket.

“The cause of the accident was off-nominal mechanical separation of the launch vehicle’s third stage and the cargo spacecraft,” Russian space agency Roscosmos said in early December, after an emergency committee investigation.

“The members of the emergency committee established the most likely cause of the contingency was the third stage liquid oxygen tank opening as a result of exposure of 11D55 engine destruction elements that occurred in result of fire and further destruction of the oxidizer compound pump.”

State-run news agency RT.com reported Rogozin as saying that the rocket would remain on the ground during a visit to the Voronezh Mechanical Plant where the Proton M is made. The factory has recalled both second and third stages of the rocket since the incident. There have been reports that the engines were recalled because workers had replaced some parts with shoddy components during construction. The Roscosmos committee found that the cause of the fire was a “possible violation 11D55 engine assembly technology”.