Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has sacked two top executives involved in a Dec. 5 Proton Block DM launch failure that destroyed three Glonass M spacecraft.
The firings, which were accompanied by an official reprimand to Anatoly Perminov, head of national space agency Roscosmos, reflect Medvedev’s fury over the incident, which prevented him from meeting a promised deadline of having a full 24-satellite Glonass constellation in place by the end of 2010.
The executives dismissed were Vyacheslav Filin, chief rocket and space system designer at Energia, and Viktor Remishnevsky, deputy head of Roscosmos. An interim inquiry report issued on Dec. 23 attributed the failure to a miscalculation that led to an oversupply of liquid oxygen to the Block DM upper stage, which is made by Energia. The report said company management also did not follow all pre-launch safety procedures, and subsequently failed to spot the miscalculation.
Some observers think the sackings could presage a further shakeup within Energia, which is already involved in restructuring and streamlining efforts aimed at bringing Sea Launch back into service, after its long stint in Chapter 11. Energia provides the Block DM-SL upper stage for Ukrainian Zenit 3SL launch vehicles used by Sea Launch, and last year became the main shareholder in the launch company
A deep restructuring of the Proton supply chain after a pair of failures in 2007-08 is credited with turning around both prime contractor Khrunichev and International Launch Services, which subsequently took over the launch provider. The Proton M’s spotless record since 2008, combined with its speedy return to service on Dec. 27, once the inquiry report ruled out the rocket’s involvement in the incident, would seem to underscore the utility of these changes.
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