The deputy head of Russia's space agency Roskosmos Aleksandr Lopatin says, "The failure occurred due to loss of stabilization and fishtailing due to abnormal functioning of an angular velocity sensor." He added that it had probably been installed upside down.
On July 2 the Proton-M rocket blasted off from launch pad 81 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and blew up almost immediately.
The rocket had stabilization problems and fail-safe mechanisms kicked in which sent the space vehicle loaded with hundreds of tons of highly toxic fuel away from the launch pad.
The rocket turned upside down, burst in flames and broke into burning pieces, which fell on the ground with an explosion. No one was injured, and there was no damage reported to the launch site.
The loss of the booster and three GLONASS satellites is estimated of 4.4 billion roubles (about $137 million). Roskosmos says it will revise rocket booster production with compulsory photo and video recording of every operation performed.
"We actually do photo and video record every [rocket booster] production stage. But unfortunately installation of the angular velocity sensor was not recorded," Aleksandr Lopatin told journalists. He revealed that the faulty sensor was installed on November 16, 2011.
The Deputy head of Roskosmos revealed that three of the six angular velocity sensor sensors on the Proton-M that crashed were installed upside down.
All Proton boosters already produced are going to be double-checked and all personnel involved in rocket assembling are being retrained.
"Comprehensive inspection is underway," reported Lopatin, adding that so far there are four boosters ready. Two of them remain at the Khrunichev space center while another two have already been delivered to Baikonur Cosmodrome. Inspection has found no problems with sensors installed on the Protons delivered to Baikonur.
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