Heptyl "tears" of "Proton"

Kazakhstan again raised the issue of toxicity of Russian missile fuel

The incidents with Russian Proton launch vehicles at Baikonur eight years ago came back to haunt domestic space industry enterprises during the last meeting of the Kazakh government. The head of the National Aerospace Agency of the neighboring republic, Talgat Musabaev, suggested that his colleagues protect their native steppe from heptyl, which is contaminated by spent stages of Russian rockets or, in the worst case, their debris. The use of such fuel in Protons threatens the environment, Mr. Musabaev believes, while the current version of the agreement on the use of the Baikonur Cosmodrome does not allow the Kazakh side to control the actions of their Russian colleagues. The head of the aerospace agency believes that the time has come to adjust the minutes of the meeting of the Russian-Kazakh intergovernmental commission of March 20, 2003, removing the clause allowing Russia to carry out one-time Proton launches from Baikonur. “It is advisable to notify the Russian side through diplomatic channels of the Kazakh side’s intention to review the validity of this clause of the agreements,” ITAR-TASS quotes Musabayev as saying.

With this statement, made moreover on Russia Day, Talgat Musabaev hardly lifted the spirits of his Russian colleagues, who react very painfully to unsuccessful launches. Moreover, in Russia it is believed that the “black” streak of “Protons”, the launch of which is possible only from Baikonur, passed in 1999, when two carriers were lost at once with a difference of three months. In July, at the fifth minute of the Proton flight with the new Briz-M upper stage, an emergency shutdown of the second stage propulsion system occurred, and the third stage with the upper stage and the warhead collapsed in the Karaganda region about a thousand kilometers from the launch. And at the end of October 1999, the launch vehicle was unable to launch the Express-A1 communications satellite, falling apart in the air in the fourth minute of flight. The ban on the launch of Protons after these incidents lasted until 2000, and then for several years the relevant departments of Russia and Kazakhstan agreed on new rules for compensation for damage caused by toxic fuel. These agreements subsequently became the basis for compensation payments, in particular during last year's accident with the Dnepr launch vehicle, which also used heptyl as fuel.

At the same time, the Russian side managed to defend the right to one-time Proton launches without coordination with Kazakhstan. And this is precisely what does not suit Mr. Musabaev, who believes that behind his back the angle of insertion into orbit is constantly changing and, as a result, the zone of potential contamination is expanding. “This is already the sixth or seventh one-time launch being carried out without us. All other launches can be missed under this “bench,” he complained, admitting, however, that another launch of a Russian launch vehicle will be allowed as an exception.

We are talking, in particular, about the launch of Proton-M with the American satellite DIRECTV-10, planned for the second ten days of June, but now postponed to July 7. It is noteworthy that the rocket manufacturers from the Center named after. Khrunichev remain completely calm. They responded to Mr. Musabayev’s statement with a completely emotionless information message, the meaning of which was that preparations for the launch were continuing at full speed: the Briz-M upper stage was being tested and all three stages of the rocket were being tested.

Fedor SEREBRYANSKY