MOSCOW, June 4 (RIA Novosti) – A state panel of experts, investigating the cause of last month’s launch failure of a Proton-M carrier rocket and the loss of an advanced telecoms satellite, will report to the government after completing its probe Sunday.
“The commission will complete its probe on June 8. After that, the results will be reported to the government,” state commission chief Alexander Danilyuk said Wednesday.
The rocket, launched from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan on May 16, burned in the atmosphere above China some nine minutes after the launch together with a valuable telecommunications satellite.
Investigators from Russia’s space agency Roscosmos claimed earlier they had not ruled out sabotage, but the allegation was soon repelled by an investigation commission who said it had found no evidence supporting the theory that the crash was caused by what it called deliberate misconduct.
The likeliest cause is still a technical failure in the third stage control engine, which made the rocket to veer off its course. At the same time, it excluded the suggested failure in the rocket’s control systems.
Russia said it would take another three years to build the replacement for the lost satellite. Express-AM4R was manufactured as part of Russia’s space program for 2006-2015. The crashed rocket was insured for 7.8 billion rubles ($224 million).
