Russia headache with space program

After many consecutive failures, the latest is the Soyuz rocket launcher 2-1b, many question marks are raised with the Russian space program.

The Independent newspaper The Independent recently said that Russia's prime minister was disappointed in the performance of the country's space industry after many consecutive failures, the latest being the launch of Soyuz rocket ship 2-1b.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev at the cabinet meeting earlier this week gave bad reviews of the work of Dmitry Rogozin, deputy prime minister in charge of the defense industry.

10th failure

"Dmitry Rogozin, I hope you understand the seriousness of this problem" - Medvedev said straight at the cabinet meeting.

The launch of missile missiles has "become repeated problems" in the land of birch where the latest launch of Soyuz 2-1b rocket ship failed on November 28.

Deputy Prime Minister Rogozin, who was responsible for Russia's space program from the end of 2011, has become a stele for criticism.

The Soyuz 2-1b missile incident is the 10th incident that occurred under his movement and it is a warning that the Russian space industry could only be a short-term risk of collapse.

An hour after the launch of Soyuz 2-1b rocket ship, everything is still normal. This is just the second launch at the new base - Vostochny in Russia's Far East and employees are in a good mood like in the festive season.

Soyuz 2-1b rocket was launched into orbit on November 28 but fell into the Atlantic - (Photo: Reuters).

The Soyuz 2-1b missile ship uses the Fregat propulsion system and carries 18 satellites, including the satellites of some other countries sent by the ship which are believed to operate well and reliably. This rocket ship is the next generation of the spacecraft that brought Yuri Gagarin into space in 1961 and has been improved thousands of times since.

The ship was launched at 8:45 am on November 28, Moscow time, and three hours later Russia's Roscosmos Group confirmed "abnormal". In a statement, they said they had lost contact with the rocket ship. Soon after, a report said it had fallen into the Atlantic Ocean.

Russian media speculated that the Fregat propulsion system had contributed to sending the ship in the wrong direction, and could also be due to human error in programming the ship's path. Another theory is that the ship was launched from a new space station, and the combination of these three factors led to failure.

However, Pavel Luzin, an expert in Perm State University's cosmology and defense industry, argued that previous incidents were often caused by parts of the ship. Flight program errors are less likely to occur.

Similarly, Aleksandr Zheleznyakov, an expert in the design and production of rocket ships and space systems, told The Independent that the incident raises the problem of poor quality in the production of parts of name ships. fire.

Systematic crisis

A government-led investigation board is expected to draw conclusions within two weeks to respond to the government as well as those that have sent satellites with the ship.

In the meantime, a debate continues about whether Russia's struggling space industry could survive the latest failure, or whether it should continue launching rocket ships.

According to CNN, in recent years, the confidence in Russia's space program has declined due to successive failures.

In April 2015, Russian ground workers lost control of the unmanned spacecraft in a resupply mission to the International Space Station. The US $ 30 million ship ended its mission in the Atlantic.

In May 2015, a Russian missile ship carrying a Mexican satellite had an incident just after it was launched and exploded at Seberia, causing public opinion to doubt the reliability of the Russian space program. Some companies wishing to send commercial satellites into space went to find other partners.

The space industry is a priority of the Russian Government. A lot of money is being poured into this area. In 2017, Russia will spend a record of 170 billion rubles for space (2.87 billion USD).

However, according to CNN, much money is also aromatic bait for corrupt officials. In 2014 alone, the Federal Space Agency Roscosmos acknowledged a financial violation of 92 billion rubles, or $ 1.8 billion.

Race to conquer space

According to AP, on October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union first launched an artificial satellite named Sputnik into Earth's orbit. Sputnik satellite was only a 58cm high satellite and weighed 84kg which could transmit radio signals to the ground. 2017 marks the 60th anniversary of this program.

The space program is a product of competition and tension between the US and the Soviet Union that culminated in the Cold War era after the Second World War. The race into space is said to end with the incident of American Apollo 11 carrying Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landing on the Moon in 1969.