At a meeting with deputy prime ministers in the Russian government, Dmitry Rogozin gave a preliminary assessment of the emergency with Proton-M and the MexSat-1 satellite. According to Rogozin, "a design feature or a violation of technology" in the production of the launch vehicle is to blame for the incident.
We will remind, the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev called the accident "Proton-M" a reputational blow for Russia. The emergency happened on May 16. At the 497th second of the flight, abnormal operation of the engines of the third stage of the launch vehicle was recorded. As explained in Roskosmos, the accident occurred at an altitude of 161 km. The third stage, the upper stage and the MexSat-1 spacecraft almost completely burned up in the atmosphere.
According to Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, two similar emergency situations involving Proton-M took place in 1988 and 2014. “Failure of the same engine system - the third stage of the Proton-M launch vehicle manufactured by the Voronezh Design Bureau of Automation. Two commissions worked in Soviet times and a year ago, they carefully studied the circumstances of this accident. Conclusions were made, nevertheless there was another relapse,”he said.
Dmitry Rogozin said that "either some design feature or a violation of technology that lead to abnormal engine behavior under certain circumstances may be to blame for what happened." According to the Deputy Prime Minister, it is a matter of honor for the industry to identify a defect.
According to Rogozin, Russia today provides 40% of all world launches into space, and it is necessary to ensure their safety. To help in this, in his opinion, the creation of the state corporation "Roscosmos" (through the merger of the United Rocket and Space Corporation and the Federal Space Agency) will be able. The first reading of the bill on the creation of a state corporation takes place in the State Duma on Tuesday.
Dmitry Medvedev also proposed punishing those responsible for space incidents. “They must also bear material responsibility, that is, answer with a ruble,” the prime minister said.