Launch Failure

Soyuz-U-PVB | Foton-M No. 1

October 15, 2002 at 6:20 PM UTC

Plesetsk Cosmodrome, Russian Federation

Mission imagery · Soyuz-U-PVB

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T−00d00h00m00s

October 15, 2002 at 6:20 PM UTC

Status: Launch Failure · Live feed refreshes every 30 seconds

43/3 (43L)

Plesetsk Cosmodrome, Russian Federation · 62.9273, 40.4500

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Rocket: Soyuz-U-PVB
Launch site: 43/3 (43L)
Launch probability: Not published
Window opens: October 15, 2002 at 6:20 PM UTC
Window closes: October 15, 2002 at 6:20 PM UTC
Feed updated: June 14, 2023 at 3:51 AM UTC

Mission description

Foton-M No.1 was a mission by the European Space Agency aboard a Russian Soyuz-U rocket that failed to launch successfully. The spacecraft's payload consisted of 44 experiments prepared by the European Space Agency, Fluidpac, BIOPAN-4, Telescience Support Unit, and others. Investigation found that the most likely cause of the failure was debris being ingested into the Blok D hydrogen peroxide pump, cutting off the supply of lubricant to the turbopumps. This was the first failure of an R-7 launch vehicle in the first two minutes of launch since 1988.

Vehicle

Soyuz-U-PVB

Soyuz · U-PVB

Height

51 m

Diameter

3 m

LEO capacity

6,900 kg

Successful launches

Launch complex

43/3 (43L)

Plesetsk Cosmodrome, Russian Federation

Plesetsk Cosmodrome is a Russian spaceport located in Mirny, Arkhangelsk Oblast, about 800 km north of Moscow and approximately 200 km south of Arkhangelsk. Originally developed as an ICBM site for the R-7 missile, it also served for numerous satellite launches using the R-7 and other rockets. Its high latitude makes it useful only for certain types of launches, especially the Molniya orbits, so for much of the site's history it functioned as a secondary location, with most orbital launches taking place from Baikonur, in the Kazakh SSR. With the end of the Soviet Union, Baikonur became a foreign territory, and Kazakhstan charged $115 million usage fees annually. Consequently, Plesetsk has seen considerably more activity since the 2000s.

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Connected program records