Russian Rocket Proton-M Crashes At Launch 145
First time accepted submitter Jade_Wayfarer writes "Today, at 02:38 UTC (08:38 local time), Russian rocket Proton-M crashed after only several seconds of flight. Proton-M was carrying 3 GLONASS-M satellites of the ill-fated Russian navigational system. There were no causalities, but evacuation of personnel was ordered because of toxic rocket fuel fumes. Video of the event can be found here."
Video from different angle... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Dashcam? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:probably... (Score:2, Informative)
FYI, the "wooshing" sound that you heard passing over your head as you posted this response was not the sound of a rocket with a propulsion problem...
Re:probably... (Score:4, Informative)
In the words of the immortal Foghorn Leghorn: "That's a joke, ah say, that's a joke, son."
Re:GNSS (Score:5, Informative)
According to the wikipedia [wikipedia.org], GLONASS has complete global coverage and is fully operational.
I have a GPS/GLONASS receiver and it certainly seems to have comparable coverage to GPS everywhere I've been in the last few years. Accuracy using both GPS and GLONASS, particularly when both are augmented by EGNOS, is quite good (on the order of 2-5 meters).
The satellites they were launching on this rocket were the GLONASS-M type, which was designed in 2001, and were not part of the new GLONASS-K series.
While certainly expensive and troublesome, I don't really see how this incident would set GLONASS back by years. /looking forward to Galileo and modernized GPS as well.