Organizations in orbit

The general director and general designer of the Voronezh Design Bureau of Himavtomatika, the manufacturer of engines for the Proton launch vehicles, left his post. This was stated by the head of Roscosmos Igor Komarov, reports TASS. According to him, the cause of the "Protons" accidents was constructive shortcomings.

“By the“ Proton ”we said that this is a constructive defect associated with both the material and with the constructive detail - the attachment of the rotor of the turbine aggregate of the third stage. Now we are working on the correction of this defect. This is due to the work of the Voronezh design bureau of chemavtomatics. There are already changes, the director of the KBHA Vladimir Rachuk left,” said Komarov. Earlier it was reported that a criminal case against Rachuk under an article on abuse of powers was opened in Voronezh.

The heads of enterprises of the missile and space industry in the event of accidents will be lost to bonuses, Komarov said. The "certain decrease" of bonuses is also provided for the enterprise as a whole.

On May 16, from the Baikonur cosmodrome using the Proton-M launch vehicle with the Breeze-M accelerated block, the Mexican satellite MexSat-1 started. At the 498th second of the flight, an emergency shutdown of the motor installation occurred at the third stage of the carrier. As a result, the third step, the accelerated block and the spacecraft were almost completely burned in the atmosphere.

Similar accidents occurred in 1988 and last year , when the most powerful Russian communications satellite was lost.

On May 18, the head of the government, Dmitry Medvedev, at a meeting with Deputy Prime Ministers, stated thatnot only disciplinary, but also material liability, guilty of the accident-launch vehicle.