Accident of Progress MC-04 - journalism and versions

The media coverage of the Progress MS-04 accident in the media upset me almost as much as the fact of the loss of a cargo ship itself. In the very first hours, journalists, relying on "sources in the industry," literally showered with versions, one brighter and more absurd one another, using headings yellow to acidity.

There is still very little reliable information about the accident of the ship, so let's look at the versions mentioned, talk about how they are born, and also try to at least a little bit to determine what really happened.

Why is it like this

In my opinion, the following factors influenced the quality of the event coverage:
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Low qualifications in a specific area . The journalist writes about everything. Yes, there are people who lead some thematic headings and understand the topic, but the news is written, obviously, not they.

Haste, the desire to work informational, without information . So, the Event happened - “Progress” suffered an accident. It is necessary to write something, but there is no information (no one has yet). Instead of asking for a comment from the official (Roscosmos) or at least an authoritative source (people working / working in the industry, space experts / journalists), is (in more detail below) an anonymous source. Even if he says adequate things, they want to make his words more vivid, and as a result something is often incongruous. At the same time, a reasonable alternative to listing real facts is often ignored as boring.

Yellow headers . It was like this before, but now it seems to be mainstream. Very often the possible version of the accident is filed under the heading “found the cause of the accident”. Do the media really do not value their authority?

A source in the space industry

“A source in the space industry” used to be a local meme, but in this accident its visibility increased greatly. Probably, more than in half of the cases, such a “source” is the forum of the journal “Cosmonautics News”. There are going to people who work in the industry or have something to do with it, and just interested. They discuss what is happening, share rumors, news and hypotheses. And, if the media is in a hurry or too lazy to find quality information from a reputable source, they often go to this forum and start translating versions from there. As a result, the random user hypothesis may become the official cause of the accident in the eyes of the media. Even if the journalists did run around Baikonur or the MCC of Moscow, it is completely unknown who they found as an expert.

The conclusion is simple. If you are reading this news, then divide the value of information from an anonymous “source in the space industry” by at least 10.

Chronology and versions

The feeling that something had gone wrong began to take shape immediately after the end of the hatch. In the Russian-language broadcast, the announcer stopped accompanying the countdown of seconds with comments “the flight is normal” from 490 seconds and did not report the normal completion of the third stage and the separation of “Progress” (from 14:35).



The situation with the NASA broadcast was even more interesting. The announcer reported that telemetry is partially accepted, but after the separation of the ship he said that information had been received on the disclosure of the antennas of the cargo ship (from 34:56)



And, just 13 minutes after the loss of telemetry, the information officially appeared on the Roscosmos website. 383 seconds is a section of the work of the third step, at this moment the height of the ship is about 180 km, and the speed is around 5 km / s. “Progress” does not have enough fuel to go into orbit, if at this moment the engines of the third stage are turned off, so the probability that the ship is lost has increased dramatically.

An hour later, in social networks, information appeared that the residents of Tuva had seen a flash and even supposedly felt a push, like during an earthquake.

Two hours later, an official report appeared about the loss of the ship. A period of amazing versions has begun.

The first distinguished "Lenta.ru." Watch your hands:

1. In the news of Interfax, an anonymous source talks about the possible causes - the engine or control system.
2. In the first paragraph of the news "Lenta.ru," makes the fact that for the version of the carrier rocket "Soyuz-U" control system was made in Ukraine.
3. The news is crowned with the yellow headline "In the fall of Progress, they found a Ukrainian trace"

In reality: Despite the fact that the control system, in principle, can cause an accident, because it is crucially important for the operation of the launch vehicle, in this case, telemetry should not disappear. On the contrary, it would have clearly seen the abnormal operation of the control system.

The following referred to the anonymous source "Kommersant". Adequate sources declined to comment for lack of information, but the journalist still found someone who made an assumption that could be added to the news. Here the culprit of the accident was the third stage engine, which went bankrupt. Again, we are looking at the headline - everything is supposedly clear - “Progress summed up the third step of the Union.” The same version appeared in TASS ( “The source called the priority version of the Progress accident” ), and then it reprinted Life.ru ( "The State Commission considers the cause of the fall of" Progress "engine burnout" ).

In reality : The burnout of the combustion chamber is a rather slow process that would be noticeable on telemetry by the pressure drop in the combustion chamber and the engine thrust. In this case, the most likely option would be when the burned-out combustion chamber collapses, the third stage thrust becomes asymmetrical, the steering engines do not cope with such a disturbance, the rocket deviates from the course, and the control system turns off the engines when the deviation becomes critical.

Another anonymous source interviewed by Lenta.ru was not particularly suitable because I forgot that after the Progress accident in the spring of 2015, two trucks started successfully on Soyuz-2.1a, and the production of Soyuz-U was stopped and finish the last missiles (emergency was the penultimate remaining).

Another anonymous source, who had already spoken with RIA Novosti, for some reason considered the most likely cause of negligence in production. RIA Novosti held back and wrote a normal headline “The source didn’t rule out that the Progress accident was due to negligence,” but Lente.ru didn’t have enough strength - the news became known as “The reason for the fall of Progress.”

In reality : In any accident, you first need to establish what happened. It is possible to draw conclusions about why this happened only later. Accordingly, the source can be confident of negligence in the production of the engine, or if he is a telepath and read the thoughts of those who made the engine, or if he participated in the production of the engine and showed negligence himself.

Life.ru soon rushed in the opposite direction:



In reality: It would be more correct to say that “the absence of debris and the sudden loss of telemetry would greatly complicate the investigation of the accident”. It will be true. But even in such conditions, according to the analysis of telemetry before the accident, equipment checks and other sources, it is often enough to conclude that it was the cause.

After a rumor appeared on the Astronautics News forum that the third stage abruptly deviated to the side, due to which the engines were turned off abnormally, the same information appears to Interfax with reference to an anonymous source at Baikonur. Well and, traditionally, evaluate the title - “The cause of the“ Progress ”accident was the failure of the third stage . ”

By contrast, a non-anonymous source told RIA Novosti is boring, but true:

“We are working on the situation in accordance with the events that have happened ... We are working, like the whole country. And we are worried about the event that took place. ”

Not just a source, but a "high-ranking" anonymous source announced to RIA Novosti the preliminary results of the work of the emergency commission on Wednesday. Well, it's already soon, we'll see, but I don't really believe in it.

An interesting turn the story takes on Saturday night. On the NK forum, rumors are being discussed that “Progress” broke away from the third step “with meat”, but at the same time began to reveal the elements, as if it received a full-time signal “Separation contact”, which is issued after the regular separation from the third step. On Saturday morning, "sources in the industry" begin to report on the regular work of the third stage and that Progress itself is the cause of the accident ( one , two ).

In fact : This information is very intriguing. The fact is that before the normal contact of the department “Progress” is flying by a passenger, and he, for example, has no fuel delivered to the engine. Therefore, some kind of serious accident on an almost “sleeping” ship looks strange.

Fortunately, further the sharpness of the topic decreased, and the media began to reduce the brightness of the headlines and the abundance of "sources".

Rumors and versions

What could have happened to Progress? The only thing we know officially is the sudden disappearance of telemetry at 383 seconds. In order to explain this fact, it is necessary to attract a version of serious damage to the third stage. For example, a rupture of a turbopump assembly will produce heavy and fast debris that can chop the control system or the wires to the antennas. Destruction of the combustion chamber or fuel tank is also suitable. The problem is that Soyuz-U has been flying since 1973, and such problems would have surfaced long ago and would have already been fixed. "Progress MS" - a relatively new ship, and this is just its fourth launch. But in the area of ​​the third stage, it is not fully activated, and it is difficult to imagine a scenario that would lead to the destruction of the ship.

The current accident is a bit like the loss of the Progress M-27M in the spring of 2015. Then the old ship flew on a new rocket, and now a new ship - on an old rocket. At that time, the cause of the accident was called the frequency-dynamic characteristics of the ship and the rocket. Translating into simple language, it most likely was a resonance - some fluctuations coincided, intensified and led to the destruction of the third stage. But this reason should have been eliminated, and two Progress have already successfully flown a new rocket. Prior to this, Progress M-12M was lost in 2011, but there the cause of the accident was clearly visible on telemetry - the fuel supply path to the gas generator was blocked. The parameters of the engine fell, and the control system turned it off. This scenario does not at all coincide with what we have observed now.

If the sudden disappearance of telemetry cannot be supplemented with any data, the investigation may be delayed for a long time, and, without information, the reasons for the fall of Progress cannot even be guessed at all. It remains only to wait for the official announcement of the results of the investigation.

Materials on accidents and incidents that have happened and not on the tag "Cosmic Incidents"

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