Rovník Disaster
| Accident | |
|---|---|
| Date | 1 July 2001 |
| Flight origin | Dimitri Stepanovich Sabitov Space Center |
| Occupants | 3 |
| Fatalities | 2 |
| Injuries | 1 |
| Survivors | 0 |
Mission Details
Launch Vehicle Rovník-3 was the third vehicle launched by the Cosmic Travel Administration as part of the Durnian Rovník Program with the intent to have a group of three Durnian astronauts orbit Iearth 3 times before reentering the atmosphere and landing in the Toyana Ocean. The craft was expected to spend 295 minutes in space, during which the crew would gather data and perform experiments, all broadcast in real-time to a reserved channel slot on DRS. The expected audience was approximately 5 million domestic viewers, of which most were students preparing to take part in terrestrial versions of the experiments performed by the astronauts. The mission's overall goal was both to test the feasibility of a larger launch vehicle and to cultivate an interest in spaceflight among the nation's youth. At launch, the total viewership had peaked at 12 million concurrent viewers.
Accident
At T+63 seconds, a battery in the main computer terminal failed due to launch stresses, resulting in a short circuit which overloaded the flight computer, disabling it for approximately 4 seconds and leaving the vehicle uncontrollable. At T+66 seconds, the vehicle begin to veer off course, resulting in a 1 degree discrepancy from the flight plan that the computer did not record properly. At T+67 seconds, the crew received the mission abort signal and began making preparations for an emergency landing. At T+74 seconds, the crew began altering their path to direct the spacecraft's wreckage in a safe direction before preparing to separate the command capsule from the launch assembly. At T+77 seconds, the maneuvers initiated by the crew were aborted after the discrepancy in the flight computer was discovered, although the craft had already entered a trajectory dangerous to eject from. At T+80 seconds, the astronauts deactivated the booster engines and detached the command capsule from the launch assembly; however, due to a coding oversight, this also detached the 4 booster rockets from the outside of the craft. At T+82 seconds, booster rocket 3 impacted the command capsule, tearing off a section of plating and ejecting astronaut Adam Havel from the command module. At T+85 seconds, astronaut Adam Havel made contact with the ground. At T+88 seconds, the command capsule made contact with the treeline 20 meters short of the intended landing site, the impact of which immediately killed astronauts Samuel Chren and Caslav Polak. At T+93 seconds, the wreckage of the command capsule came to a stop on the edge of the emergency landing target, a small, unnamed lake 25 kilometers from the launch site.
Aftermath
Emergency rescue crews quickly discovered the wreckage and found astronaut Adam Havel still alive, but critically injured. He was airlifted to Crossroads General Hospital in Kalisz Promorski where he remained in intensive care for 6 hours and 37 minutes before expiring from his injuries. The bodies of all three astronauts were recovered and returned to their families prior to the opening of a crash investigation. Wreckage recovery efforts lasted 3 days and involved a total of 43 workers to locate, excavate, and transport the remains of the spacecraft to Dimitri Stepanovich Sabitov Space Center for examination. An estimated 2% of the vehicle remains unaccounted for, including two of its Nickel-Cadmium batteries and the thrust nozzle of booster rocket 1. The wreckage took a further 10 days to fully clean, including 6 days alone to drain the command capsule of mud and water gathered while sinking into the lakebed. Examination located the battery which failed and traced it to a typo in a pre-flight checklist which resulted in the fault going unnoticed. Following the examination, the wreckage was buried at the Dimitri Stepanovich Sabitov Space Center's memorial boneyard on February 13th, 2003, where it remains to this day. The lake which the craft came to rest in was officially named Rovník's Vigil in honor of the late crew.
Crew
The vehicle was crewed by three astronauts, Adam Havel, Samuel Chren, and Caslav Polak. Of the three, only Samuel Chren had participated in a spaceflight prior to the mission.