Space Conflictology

The White House will deal with the dispute between the state Roskosmos and private Dauria Aerospace.
03.04.2018
Kommersant
Origin source
The conflict between Dauria Aerospace and Roskosmos, which was caused by disagreements about the success of the launch of Soyuz-2.1a in July 2017, came to the level of the government. In Dauria Aerospace believe that the small devices MCA-N created by them could be lost because of the anomaly in the work of the upper stage, and insist on the creation of a special emergency commission. In "Roskosmos" they are sure: the version about the failure of the onboard equipment of satellites due to fuel leakage in one of the engines of the "disperser" is untenable. According to Kommersant's information, Oleg Frolov, the head of the Space Council of the MIC board, will deal with the situation.

The private satellite manufacturer Dauria Aerospace asked Dmitry Rogozin to create an "emergency commission to find out the causes of the contingency situation" that occurred on July 14, 2017 when the Soyuz-2.1a rocket was launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome. On that day, the carrier put into orbit a record number of satellites (73 units), including two remote sensing satellites of the MKA-H earth belonging to Dauria Aerospace. None of them contacted, in October 2017, both were declared lost. The company put forward a version of the "external impact" on the vehicles due to a malfunction of the engine of the Fregat upper stage (developed at the Lavochkin NGO).

In a letter to the company's CEO Sergey Ivanov (available to Kommersant), it says that the company does not have an unambiguous answer, what is the reason for the loss of satellites, since all the circumstances of the emergency had to be clarified by the emergency commission, but Roskosmos refused to create it. According to Dauria, after putting into orbit, "for a short time up to 14 spacecraft stopped communicating," and some (Flock-2k-42 and Lemur-2-43) were completely in orbit. "Our company has so far unsuccessfully tried to comprehensively understand the causes of the anomalies. We are even denied access to telemetric information on the functioning of the Fregat upper stage, "the letter said. At the conclusion of the Central Research Institute of Mechanical Engineering (TsNIIMash), the probable cause of the non-standard work of MKA-N is called "external impact", the same version, as stated in the document, is confirmed by the NGO Lavochkin report submitted by the state corporation at the state commission (there it is about leaving structure of the small engine of the accelerating unit). However, according to Sergei Ivanov, despite this, the emergency commission was established and was not.

This is also subject to financial disputes: in early March, Dauria announced that it will not receive insurance, and is also forced to prepare a response to Roskosmos on their pre-declaration with a demand to return 290 million rubles. (received under the contract of 2012). In case of refusal to pay the state corporation expects to return the money through the court. According to Kommersant, Dauria offered Roskosmos to produce two similar devices at its own expense, but the state corporation was not interested. She sent a complaint to Dauria about the execution of the state contract. And on March 21, Lavochkin's NGO filed a lawsuit with the Moscow Arbitration Court against the company for non-payment of launch services. The amount of claims is more than 24 million rubles. In general, the state corporation and its enterprises filed suits against the company for more than 300 million rubles, which, according to Kommersant, Dauria can not pay. In a letter to the deputy prime minister, it is stated that the state corporation "acts in fact against the interests of the Russian Federation in the development of high-tech production, the expansion of the export potential of the economy, and the establishment of a public-private partnership." At Kommersant, the authenticity of the letter was confirmed, refusing to comment further.

In Roskosmos, the company does not accept the arguments, believing that the launch was successful. Kommersant was told by the state corporation that the report of the Lavochkin Scientific and Technical Commission (with the participation of representatives of industry and military acceptance) said that the separation of two ICA-H and some other satellites (for example, Corvus-BC) according to the schedule was from 9180 on the 9590th second of the flight, "until the anomaly in the work of one of the engines of the upper stage" (at 11440 seconds). "At the speed of separation of the MKA-H declared by Dauria, the distance to the" Frigate "during this time was more than 1.5 km, - Roskosmos says .- The company's version that the cause of the external impact, which resulted in the failure of the on-board apparatus of the apparatus, was an anomaly work of one of the engines of the "Frigate" is not true. " The state corporations also believe that Dauria did not establish the cause of the malfunction of its vehicles, nor did it provide the correct documentation to TsNIIMash. Nevertheless, as reported by "Kommersant" in Roskosmos, the state corporation requested additional information in the NGO named after Lavochkin on the work of the "disperser" during the launch.

"They confirmed that the total fuel consumption of the propulsion system stabilizing the orientation and ensuring the launch for the entire flight is the same and does not exceed the value indicated in the calculation of refueling," added Roskosmos. "This confirms the absence of a leakage of hydrazine through the orientation engine." However, the version with the leakage of hydrazine except Dauria was put forward by the head of the Mayak project, Alexander Shaenko, who also lost the satellite. "The Mayak project is over, I can express my personal hopes for the emergency commission," Mr. Shayenko told Kommersant, stressing that its backbone should be composed of individuals "whose impartiality is unquestionable."

Apparently, Oleg Frolov, the head of the Space Council of the MIC board, can become one of such persons. As Kommersant's source in Rogozin's office reported yesterday, the vice-premier instructed him to check the information received: "All subsequent decisions will be made on the basis of the data received."

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