Security chief rejects sabotage in Zenit explosion (11/08/98)

Security chief rejects sabotage in Zenit explosion

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Ukraine's national security chief said he rejects the notion that the explosion of a Ukrainian Zenit 2 rocket in September was the result of sabotage.

Russian experts said two weeks ago that a malfunction in the Russian-built control system of the Ukrainian-built rocket, which was carrying 12 U.S. satellites, caused the explosion that destroyed the rocket and the payload minutes after launch.

The computer control system that malfunctioned was produced by the Russian Automation and Instrument Research and Production Center in Moscow.

Rumors had circulated widely in Ukraine that the explosion was a result of sabotage by political forces in Russia who had wanted to discredit Ukraine's space program.

"I can judge on the strength of all my experience in the space industry that there was no sabotage," said the secretary of Ukraine's National Defense and Security Council, Volodymyr Horbulin, on October 28. Mr. Horbulin is a mechanical engineer who has headed Ukraine's National Space Agency and once worked at the PivdenMash rocket factory that designed and produced the Zenit II.

According to Mr. Horbulin, the control system of the Zenit II had a fatal design flaw that did not allow it to recognize a malfunction in the system's operation, which it mistook for a malfunction in the engine. It then gave an emergency destruction order that downed the rocket.

Mr. Horbulin called the accident tragic but understandable. "There have always been and will continue to be unsuccessful launchings because that type of technology is at the horizon [of innovation] and even beyond it," said Mr. Horbulin.

The rocket, which was carrying the largest payload of satellites ever carried by one rocket, went down near the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakstan on September 9, five minutes after launch, when the second-stage booster rocket shut down.

The failed launch cost the U.S. consortium Globalstar, which owned the satellites, more than $200 million. Using the mighty Zenit II rocket, the consortium had hoped to quickly place 56 satellites into orbit to develop a world-wide satellite mobile phone network.

Immediately after the explosion, Globalstar officials switched to an older Russian-built Soyuz rocket for use in hoisting their satellites into space. They said at the time that they would only consider going back to the Zenit II after a joint Ukrainian-Russian commission had completed its work.

Mr. Horbulin said that he now believes that Ukraine's other major space project, a multi-national effort involving Ukraine, the United States, Norway and Russia to develop an ocean-based site near the equator for satellite launches, called Sea Launch, will proceed on schedule.

"I believe that, with all else being equal, that even with the Globalstar failure, the Sea Launch project is proceeding normally," said Mr. Horbulin. The Sea Launch program also is scheduled to use the Zenit II rocket.

The project was delayed once after it was discovered that the Boeing Corp., the chief contributor to the project, had illegally transferred arms technology without U.S. State Department approval. The company has agreed to pay a fine and has received State Department clearance to continue with the project.

The new target date for the first satellite launch is March 1999.

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