Proton launch postponed to Saturday – Spaceflight Now

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The Proton rocket rises on its starting point at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, waiting for the launch of the Spektr-RG X-ray astronomy mission. Credit: Roscosmos

Russian authorities have postponed to Saturday the launch of a Proton rocket from Kazakhstan with the X-ray astronomy observatory Spektr-RG, an ambitious mission jointly developed with Germany to explore the Black energy.

The Russian State Commission, in charge of preparations for the final launch of the Baikonur Cosmodrome, decided Friday morning to postpone the launch until Saturday.

In a statement released Friday, the Russian Space Agency said that officials had ordered the postponement of the fact that it was necessary to obtain an "experimental confirmation" from Khrunichev, the maker of the Proton rocket in Moscow, a proposed solution to solve a technical problem on one of the launcher systems. .

The Russian space agency Roscosmos announced Thursday that engineers were looking into a technical problem with the Proton rocket, and added that its officials had planned to decide Friday whether or not to launch an attempt.

The Russian State Commission is scheduled to meet again early Saturday to discuss the technical problem before allowing the teams to start refueling the Proton launcher.

If the launch attempt continues, the Saturday takeoff is scheduled for 12:31 GMT (8:31 am EDT, 17:31 GMT, Baikonur time).

The launch mission of the Spektr-RG X-ray Observatory was scheduled to start on June 21, but officials had to bring the rocket back to a building in Baikonur to replace a battery. The Proton rocket returned to its launch pad on Tuesday at Complex 81 in Baikonur.

In this photo taken earlier this year, the Spektr-RG astronomy satellite is being prepared to be sent to the Baikonur Cosmodrome at a Lavochkin NPO facility in Khimki, Russia, near Moscow. Credit: Roscosmos

The Proton rocket and its upper Block DM will send the Spektr-RG spacecraft to an observation post in orbit around the Lagrange L2 point located at nearly one million miles (1.5 million kilometers) from the night side of the Earth. Location L2 is a point of gravitational balance between Earth and the sun and is a favorite place for space astronomy missions.

Spektr-RG carries Russian and German X-ray telescopes to scan the entire sky. One of the main objectives of the mission is the study of massive clusters of galaxies, the largest structures of the known universe, which contain clues about dark energy.

Black energy is the mysterious force that accelerates the expansion of the universe.

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Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @ StephenClark1.

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