Crash of Ukrainian rocket imperils space program (09/20/98)

Crash of Ukrainian rocket imperils space program

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - A Ukrainian rocket carrying 12 United States communications satellites that crashed in Kazakstan on September 9 minutes after launch could yet bring down with it the viability of Ukraine's fledgling space program.

While Ukrainian and Russian authorities exchanged accusations over who was at fault in the failed launch in the week after the catastrophe, Globalstar, the company that paid for the launch of the 12 satellites, announced that a Russian-made rocket lift into orbit the remaining satellites involved in its project.

Globalstar, a consortium of several U.S. companies, had put its hopes on the mighty Ukrainian Zenit II rocket produced by the PivdenMash rocket factory in Dnipropetrovsk to quickly place into orbit a network of 56 satellites. Globalstar is competing with a group of companies led by Motorola to establish the first worldwide handheld satellite phone network.

The 12 satellites that the Zenit II was to take into orbit was the largest payload of satellites ever carried by a single rocket. Two other, flights now canceled with similar payloads were scheduled before the end of the year. The failed launch cost Globalstar $190 million in lost satellites and approximately $30 million for the launch itself.

Ukraine's President Leonid Kuchma, who was the director of the Pivdenmash rocket factory during initial development and production of the Zenit II, said after the accident that Ukraine's space program would quickly get back on track. In two separate appearances he emphasized that the accident is a temporary setback.

Speaking before students at the Kyiv Polytechnical Institute he stated, "We will rectify our mistakes; no technology has 100 percent reliability." Interfax-Ukraine reported that in Luhansk he told a group of journalists that the crash "should not make our partners doubt that the Zenit is the world's best rocket."

What Mr. Kuchma did not say was that this was the sixth failure of the Zenit II in 29 launches. In addition, two test launches also failed during development of the rocket.

Committed to moving the $2.7 billion project forward, representatives of Space Systems Loral, the builder of the satellites and a subsidiary of Loral Space and Communications, which is the chief investor in Globalstar, said that all future launches would now be done with older, Russian-made Soyuz rockets. The Soyuz rockets were originally scheduled to place only the last 12 satellites into orbit next year.

Space Systems Loral representative Jeannette Clonan said that she could not say whether the Zenit would be used again. She told The Kyiv Post, "It will be up to the folks conducting the investigation. I don't have a time estimate on when the decision will be made, that's out of our hands."

Ukraine and Russia have set up a joint investigative commission that is due to have at least a preliminary report out by the end of September.

Initial reports are that a computer malfunction, which ordered the Zenit II to shut down its engines during the fifth minute of flight, is responsible for the failed launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakstan. According to Valerii Komarov, deputy director of the National Space Agency of Ukraine, the second stage of the booster rocket shut down at the 275.81 second mark of the launch. The nose cone carrying the 12 satellites automatically disengaged from the booster rocket with the shutdown, fell to earth and disintegrated in the Altai Mountains of Kazakstan. The booster rocket followed.

Mr. Komarov said the computer that controlled the flight was designed by the Russian Automation and Instrument Research and Production Center located in Moscow. Final assembly of the components took place in Kharkiv, Ukraine, at the Kommunar factory.

Whether Moscow and Kyiv will be able to put together a finding quickly is unknown, given that the two sides are already pointing fingers at one another.

The Russian Space Agency representative stated a day after the launch that Ukraine holds ultimate responsibility. Press spokesman Viacheslav Mikhailichenko said, "The launch was considered Ukraine's responsibility. The Russian side exercised only general coordination of the work in the project," according to ITAR-TASS.

President Kuchma in his appearance in Luhansk on September 12 underscored that the launch was a joint Russian-Ukrainian project that incorporated components made in both countries. PivdenMash was used mainly as the final assembly site, explained the Ukrainian president.

Then, on September 14, government-owned Ukrainian Television blamed Energomash, the Russian manufacturer of the second-stage rocket booster, for the launch failure.

PivdenMash officials, who refused to put the blame on Energomash, according to The Kyiv Post, were ready only to take upon themselves partial blame for the project's failure. "At the present moment, we definitely exclude a rocket design error, but we can theorize about manufacturing errors," stated a press statement released by the plant's press office.

Whoever is to blame, the real impact to Ukraine may be in its participation in the international Sea Launch project, a multi-national effort involving the U.S., Ukraine, Russia and Norway to build a launch bed in the Atlantic Ocean that would more efficiently carry satellites into orbit using the Zenit II rocket. So far the project coordinators are taking a wait-and-see attitude regarding the troubled rocket's future.

"[The Zenit's] quality and reliability may be brought into question," said Sea Launch representative Daniel Van Hulle, according to the Kyiv Post. "Those questions will have to be mitigated."

Mr. Van Hulle said the computer planned for the Sea Launch operation would be an updated version of the one believed to be responsible for the Baikonur crash.

He also explained that one of the Zenit II's valuable assets is that it can be stored horizontally and lifted to a vertical position just before launch, an indispensable trait on an ocean platform that constantly sways.

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