Nedelin disaster
The largest officially known rocket accident is known as the Nedelin disaster . In this accident on October 24, 1960, a military ICBM explosion at the Soviet spaceport Baikonur killed 126 people, according to some sources even more. Mitrofan Nedelin ( chief marshal of the artillery ), the chief of the strategic missile troops, was responsible for this disaster . He himself died in this disaster.
prehistory
The R-16 missile, the Soviet Union's first military intercontinental ballistic missile, was a design by Michail Jangel . Their development and testing was under considerable time pressure, because for propaganda reasons the start was to take place on the anniversary of the October Revolution .
Party leader Khrushchev was enthusiastic when the concept of the missile was presented to him in the summer of 1959, because it enabled him to reduce the troop strength of the Soviet Army by 1.2 million men in an "unprecedented gesture" to the world public offset by ICBMs. This also led to the establishment of the Soviet Strategic Missile Forces (RWSN), which worked independently of the other branches of the Soviet Army , and which were subordinated to Nedelin.
On October 24, 1960, Nedelin wanted to observe the first successful launch of the R-16 in Baikonur. He therefore pushed ahead with the work on the preceding days and had numerous safety precautions bypassed, although the rocket was still in the test phase and the work was far from complete. The R-16 was refueled on October 22, 1960 with 124 tons of fuel made from the hypergolic components UDMH and nitric acid . Nitric acid is an extremely aggressive substance, so that rockets that have been defueled after refueling must then be brought to the manufacturer for inspection.
Course of the disaster
The preparations for the launch were canceled on October 23rd due to problems with the electronics, but had to be restarted on Nedelin's orders. The start should take place on October 24th at 7:30 p.m. Presumably to allay the legitimate safety concerns of his subordinates about a fuel leak and to put pressure on them, Nedelin demonstratively placed himself on a chair eight meters from the missile on October 24 at around 6:40 p.m. Other military personnel and technicians were forced to leave the secure bunker and stand next to it.
The autonomous on-board energy supply was already activated and some of the pyromembrane in the fuel system was open, as the previous interruption had occurred within the one-hour standby period. To ignite the rocket, only a rotary switch had to be operated, which at that time was in the post -start position due to a previous test . An employee tried to move the switch to the pre-start position and passed the manual ignition switch position of the second stage . During normal launch preparation, the missile's power supply would have been switched off and the switching process would have had no effect. Unfortunately, this now led to the unintentional activation of an electropneumatic valve (WO-7), which was used to regulate the pressure in the starting container.
Now the second stage march engine fired. It tore apart the tanks of the first stage below. The UDMH and the nitric acid mixed and an explosion occurred, which burned 124 tons of fuel within 90 seconds. Initial newspaper reports in the early 1990s reported 126 deaths, including 57 high-ranking military officials. The commander of the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Lieutenant General Alexei Schumilin, allegedly named the number 154 in February 1997 on the occasion of the German-Russian space mission Mir 97. But there are other claims that vary between 92 and 200 fatalities. From Nedelin, who had been right next to the rocket, only the remains of his order Hero of the Soviet Union and parts of his uniform were found. Among the fatalities are, besides Nedelin, well-known scientists like Jangel's deputy Berlin and Konzewoi , as well as Firsow, the chief designer of the Kharkov OKB-692 Boris Konopljow , the deputy chairman of the State Committee of the USSR for defense technology Lev Grischin and the deputy commander of the launch site, Nossow .
Improper handling of the defective and already refueled rocket under time pressure and significantly accelerated schedules are assumed to be the cause of the accident. Contrary to the technical plan at hand, the repair work was carried out at Nedelin's express order with the on-board energy system activated. However, the investigative commission refrained from officially assigning the blame personally.
The death of numerous specialists and the loss of the launch site delayed the planned progress of the Soviet missile program, so that the R-16 could only take off three months later, in February.
Consequences
Prime Minister Khrushchev imposed absolute secrecy on the events. A commission of inquiry was also set up under the direction of Leonid Brezhnev to investigate the events on the ground and to research the reasons for the accident. The commission found, among other things, that over 250 people had been near the launch pad - much more than would have been necessary. Most of them should have been in security bunkers at this point. Since the morale of the missile specialists was heavily affected by the death of many comrades after the accident and the goals set should be achieved with the remaining ones as quickly as possible, no one was subsequently called directly to account.
The designer of the rocket, Michail Jangel, survived the accident unharmed. At the time of the explosion, he and colleagues were outside the danger area in a smoking area. One of the few safety measures still observed, the ban on smoking near the rocket, saved his life. When, shortly after the accident, Jangel told Khrushchev in a telephone conversation about the death of Nedelin and the other numerous victims, the latter asked him: "How is it that you survived?"
Today there is a memorial plaque at the site of the disaster, which is traditionally visited by the officials before each start.
literature
- Nikita Khrushchev: And the Creation of a Superpower , Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-271-01927-1
- Harford, James: Korolev - How One Man Masterminded the Soviet Drive to Beat America to the Moon . John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York 1997, pp 119-120, ISBN 0-471-32721-2
- Matthias founder: SOS in space. Mishaps, problems and disasters in manned spaceflight . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, 2001, ISBN 3-89602-339-X
Movie
- Martin Huebner: The Inferno of Baikonur. Documentary from the ARD series Protocol of a Disaster . Germany, MDR, 2003.
Web links
- russianspaceweb: nedelin catastrophe (English)
- Nedelin disaster
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b sloppiness in space travel .
- ↑ Technical findings of the commission for the clarification of the causes of the disaster with the device 8K64 No. LD1-ST during its preparation for the start by the troop unit 11284 on October 24, 1960 .
- ^ A b Sparrow, Giles., Evening, Bernhard ,: Adventure space travel: [50 years of expeditions into space] . Dorling Kindersley, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-8310-1089-9 .