Russian Bid to Launch 18 Satellites Fails

[seriousstan]

Russian rocket that was to put 18 satellites in orbit crashed shortly after liftoff early Thursday, the Interfax news agency reported.

The Dnepr rocket crashed about 15 miles south of the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan but caused no injuries or damage on the ground, Interfax quoted Russian space agency deputy chief Yuri Nosenko as saying.

The rocket was carrying a Russian satellite and 17 from other countries, including the United States and Italy, Russian news agencies reported.

Interfax, citing an unidentified Mission Control official, reported preliminary information indicated a problem occurred when the rocket's third stage detached. RIA-Novosti and ITAR-Tass, also citing unnamed officials, said the engine shut off 86 seconds into the flight.

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/07/26/D8J40HAO1.html

[Javaman]

1. 18 on one rocket??? Is that some sort of record? nt

[Posteritatis]

4. Some Russian rockets have insane throw weights

And satellites can be made pretty small these days. Eighteen in one launch is doable, if the designers of the satellites were stingy for mass and volume.

[sofa king]

5. Unfortunately, not really. That's a converted Russian ICBM.

MIRV being an acronym for "multiple independent reentry vehicles." Usually, each one of those "reentry vehicles" is a nuclear weapon. In this case, the vehicles were not supposed to reenter the atmosphere, but they did anyway.

The "Dnepr" rocket is simply a converted RS-20K, better known to us as the SS-18 "Satan." It has a ridiculous "throw weight" of 8.8 tons, enough to theoretically spray 20-36 nuclear weapons, each individually guided, with a single launch.

It was designed in response to Saint Ronnie's Star Wars plans, an ICBM that could throw so many warheads so many different places that it would be impossible to stop with one-shot spaceborne lasers. The START II treaty was supposed to ensure that all of the SS-18s wound up as either civilian rockets or destroyed by 2007, but since Our Fearless Leader has effectively abrogated all disarmament treaties with the Russians, there are still dozens of these missiles ready to launch--at us, and they won't be sending microsattelites.

[ConcernedCanuk]

2. Hmmm - makes one ponder, considering Russia kept the space station going

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and were rocketing HUMANS - and as far as I know, they never lost any - -

and I'm REAL curious why they had a USA satellite in their payload,

USA and Russia ain't really kissin' cousins right now . . .

hmmmm

[sidpleasant]

3. it was probably a US commercial satellite

For example it could have been a new transmitter for one of the sat radio or sat TV companies. Russia probably charges a lot less for launches than NASA does.

[TheLastMohican]

6. Dnepr is a Ukrainian rocket

to be absolutely honest about it. And rocketry in Ukraine is quickly deteriorating.