Unmanned Russian rocket crashes in Kazakhstan

[jakeXT]

Last edited Tue Jul 2, 2013, 02:12 PM - Edit history (1)

Source: BBC

An unmanned Russian Proton-M rocket has crashed just seconds after its launch from the Russian Baikonur facility in Kazakhstan.

Dramatic video footage broadcast by Russian TV shows the rocket break up before exploding into a fireball over the Baikonur cosmodrome.

Russia's Interfax news agency reported that up to 500 tonnes of poisonous rocket fuel may have been released and contaminated the crash site.

...

The rocket was carrying three satellites for Russia's Glonass (global) navigation satellite system.

Read more: http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23140665

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[Socal31]

1. "The rocket was carrying three satellites for Russia's Glonass (global) navigation satellite system"

Suuuure it was. I would say that too....there is no way the insurance adjuster would know it was really only carrying 15 CDs from the 90s, (Hansen and Spicegirls, of course), a couple old French-fries, and a roach in the ashtray.

[happyslug]

2. Most Rocket launchers are self insured, thus your comment is meaningless

And since what was going up was three Russian Satellites, I doubt there is any insurance. The Russians will have to eat this loss.

[dbackjon]

3. Good - those gay-killing bastards deserve every failure they can get

[IBEWVET]

4. Is that the same

rocket our astronauts use to reach the space station?

[AtheistCrusader]

6. No, the Soyuz capsules are grunted into orbit on the Soyuz Launcher

an R-7 series rocket. They don't use Proton's for people. Just bombs and inert cargo, like communications satellites.

[uppityperson]

5. More enviromental damage. FWIW, wiki has an interesting bit on it

I have no clue how true this is, but wanted to share and see if anyone knows.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton-M

Critics claim that Proton rocket fuel (unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (UDMH)) and debris created by Russia's space programme is poisoning areas of Russia and Kazakhstan. Clusters of cancers have been found in the Republic of Altai[8] and residents claim that acid rain falls after some launches. Anatoly Kuzin, deputy director of the Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center, has however denied these claims, saying: "We did special research into the issue. The level of acidity in the atmosphere is not affected by the rocket launches [and] there is no data to prove any link between the illnesses [in Altai] and the influence of rocket fuel components or space activity of any kind".[8]