Report: Russia Identifies Cause of Rocket Launch Failure

[Purveyor]

Russian space officials have found the cause for a rocket failure last week that crashed an unmanned supply ship bound for the International Space Station, according to Russian news reports.

The robotic Progress 44 cargo spacecraft crashed in Siberia on Aug. 24 after its Soyuz rocket failed shortly after liftoff. The craft and its 2.9 tons of supplies for the space station were lost.

Since the accident, officials have been investigating the source of the problem, a rarity among the famously reliable Soyuz series of vehicles. Engineers have now traced the source of the failure to a malfunction in the gas generator in the Soyuz’s third stage engine, Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) spokesman Alexei Kuznetsov told the Russian Itar-Tass New Agency on Monday (Aug. 29).

“Members of the emergency commission have determined the cause of the failure of the Soyuz carrier rocket’s third stage engine. It is a malfunction in the engine’s gas generator,” he said.

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