Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!nih-csl!lhc!ncifcrf!haven!udel!wuarchive!usc!sdd.hp.com!ucsd!ucbvax!bloom-beacon!eru!hagbard!sunic!mcsun!unido!mpirbn!p515dfi
From: p515dfi@mpirbn.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de (Daniel Fischer)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: Soviet rocket blows up during launch?
Message-ID: <1350@mpirbn.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de>
Date: 30 Oct 90 11:42:36 GMT
References: <3330033@hpindda.cup.hp.com> <1990Oct25.065253.20469@cimage.com>
Reply-To: p515dfi@mpirbn.UUCP (Daniel Fischer)
Organization: Max-Planck-Institut fuer Radioastronomie, Bonn
Lines: 16

In article <1990Oct25.065253.20469@cimage.com> 
gregc@dgsi.UUCP (Greg Cronau/10000) writes:
>In article <3330033@hpindda.cup.hp.com> 
mears@hpindda.cup.hp.com (David Mears) writes:
>>A couple of weeks (or was that months?) ago, I saw a small sidebar
>>article in the local newspaper about a Soviet heavy lift rocket
>>blowing up early during launch, maybe even on the pad.  ...
>
>Was this article about a recent event or historic event?

It happened on Oct.4, 1990: a Zenith booster with a classified payload exploded
seconds after liftoff. According to AP Network News the Soviets (who released
the info one week later) believe it was a production fault, not a design problemand that thus the effect on their space capability is minimal. In Space News,
however, Oberg called it a big setback: the Zenith is identical to the boosters
of the Energia - the incident might make the Soviet planners think it's wise to
stop flying Energia (and Buran, which nobody needs anyway) completely.