Rokot / Briz-KM: CRYOSAT

CryoSat-1 was launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia on October 8, 2005, using a Rockot launcher. (Rockot is a modified SS-19 rocket which was originally an ICBM designed to deliver nuclear weapons, but which Russia is now eliminating in accordance with the START treaties.) According to Mr. Yuri Bakhvalov, First Deputy Director General of the Khrunichev Space Centre, when the automatic command to switch off the second stage engine did not take effect, the second stage continued to operate until it ran out of fuel and as a consequence the planned separation of the third (Breeze-KM) stage of the rocket which carried the CryoSat satellite did not take place, and would thus have remained attached to the second stage. The upper rocket stages, together with the satellite, probably crashed in the Lincoln Sea. Analysis of the error revealed that it was caused by faults in the programming of the rocket, which had not been detected in simulations.