Russian rocket and 19 satellites fell into the ocean

However, the second launch was unsuccessful. The state corporation said that during the first scheduled session it was not possible to establish communication with the spacecraft, noting that they were analyzing the causes of the incident. Meanwhile, Roskosmos reported that the head unit of the Soyuz-2.1b rocket as part of the upper unit Fregat and the Meteor-M spacecraft was launched into a predetermined intermediate orbit.

An emergency situation could have occurred between the separation from the third stage of the Soyuz-2.1b rocket and the first start-up of the engines of the Fregat upper stage, according to RIA Novosti. According to Interfax, problems may be associated with the issuance of one of the two impulses by a sustainer propulsion system.

A source from Interfax added that with the most favorable scenario of non-delivery of a second impulse, “the device could be put into an unplanned orbit”. The interlocutor of RIA Novosti believes that the absence of telemetry from Meteor-M No. XXUMX-2 means the fall of the entire rocket head into the ocean in the Antarctic region.

We are talking about the main load, the three-ton Meteor-M hydrometeorological satellite No. XXUMX-2, and 1 small devices, including one Russian (student device Baumanets-18) and 2 foreign. The latter include LEMUR, 17, American agricultural satellite, water monitoring and land management, 10 satellites monitoring marine vessels Landmapper-bc, an experimental German apparatus for creating amateur services D-staronesatellite LEO Vantage (the grouping of such small communications devices will begin operation in 2021), the Norwegian AISSat-3 (satellite of the monitoring of the seas) satellite IDEA (designed to track microscopic space debris) and the Swedish satellite SEAM (explores the Earth’s magnetosphere).

The first launch took place a year and a half ago: 28 on April 2016 of the year at 05: 01 Moscow time launched a Soyuz-2.1 rocket with an upper stage Volga. Then, of the three launched devices “Mikhailo Lomonosov”, “Aist-2D” and SamSat-218D earned only the first two, and the start itself, originally scheduled for April 27, was postponed for a day due to the failure of the automatic control system. Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was present at Eastern Russia, reprimanded Vice Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin and head of Roscosmos Igor Komarov.

After the launch of Soyuz-2.1b, the deputy prime minister behaved as if everything went smoothly. Rogozin, as if nothing had happened, told about the prospects of Vostochny, in particular, about the construction of the second and third launch tables, the launch of the Angara heavy rocket and the construction of a super-heavy carrier. “Before the 2028 of the year, a third launching table and a technical complex will be built under“ super-heavyweight ”(...). This is work in the interests of Mars, this is work in the orbit of an artificial satellite of the Moon, this is a flight to Jupiter and so on, ”said Rogozin.

“I do not have information, I do not think that there is detailed information about what exactly happened, for what reason. Therefore, while I would not be in a hurry, I would still have a little patience. In any case, we are waiting for information from the relevant departments, first of all, naturally, from the Roscosmos state corporation, said the press secretary of the Russian president, Dmitry Peskov.

The third launch from East is scheduled for December 22 2017. It is planned that the Soyuz-2.1b rocket will deliver the Canopus spacecraft into orbit. The launch of commercial launches is scheduled for 2018 year (we are talking about mobile satellite communications devices of the British company Oneweb). In total, from the East they expect to launch the 2-3 satellite in 2018 and 6-7 - in the 2019 year. Also from the East and on the Soyuz in 2019-2021 three missions to the Earth satellite will start: Luna-25, Luna-26 and Luna-27. In "Roskosmos" they hope that from the 2020-th the cosmodrome will be released on 8-10 launches per year.