Март 2012 г.

Российская наука и мир (по материалам зарубежной электронной прессы)

CONTENTS / ОГЛАВЛЕНИЕ


• Taken for Granted: Foreign Invasion
• Unexpected Crustacean Diversity Discovered in Northern Freshwater Ecosystems
• For Japanese Farmers, Lessons From Chernobyl
• Les russes réussissent la manœuvre de correction d'orbite pour l'ISS
• A Russian renaissance?
• Daniel Stoupin, maître dans l'art de la photographie microscopique
• Lightning strikes produce free neutrons, and we're not sure how
• ISS: déclaration commune des Chefs des agences spatiales
• Soviet Weather Satellite Falls in Antarctica
• Russia to finally send man to the Moon
• Europe OKs Funding for Mars Mission with Russia
• Russian Proton-K completes 45 years of service with US-KMO satellite launch

Система функционирования научных институтов в России нуждается в полном пересмотре, и повышения финансирования для исправления ситуации недостаточно, говорится в редакционной статье журнала Nature. Необходим независимый научный совет, желательно с участием иностранных ученых, а также хорошо финансируемое агентство по выделению грантов на научные исследования с помощью прозрачных и справедливых процедур.

Vladimir Putin's promise to increase research spending is welcome - but his country's scientific system needs a complete overhaul.
The plight of Russian science was far from the minds of most of the protesters filling Moscow's streets after the disputed parliamentary poll in December and the equally contested presidential elections on 4 March. The protests, the largest in the country for 20 years, reflect the alienation of Russia's intelligentsia and rising urban middle-class from its inbred political leadership, and the autocratic tendencies scarcely veiled behind its assertions of democracy. Yet the crowds' grievances do mirror some of the problems that are keeping Russian science down.
There is no doubt that the scientific system seriously lacks money. Vladimir Putin's pre-election promise to pump funding into basic science and innovation (see page 253) as part of his plan to modernize and diversify Russia's stagnating economy, which is heavily dependent on energy exports, is welcome. His spending promises - and his opponents' general lack of interest in science - may explain why many Russian academics and working scientists voted to return Putin to the presidency.
But Russian science is undergoing a crisis that runs deeper than money: the country's publication output has declined in the past decade despite a slight recovery of the still-meagre public science budgets. More than 20 years after the end of the Soviet Union, Russia's large research community is fundamentally divided over how it would like the domestic science funding system to operate.
Russian scientists of all ages - not just those who have come of age since the fall of the Soviet Union - are sincerely inclined towards liberal democracy and open intellectual discourse. They believe that scientific systems based on peer-reviewed grant applications, although fiercely competitive, are preferable to any form of prescribed knowledge production. But an influential class of old-school academicians and science administrators would rather return to communist secret practices than accept the norms and standards of what they see as Western science. Peer review? Project evaluation? Perish the thought.
It is mostly the latter group - together with Russia's omnipresent Federal Security Service, formerly run by Putin - that has created the stifling bureaucracy and perplexing jungle of regulations and restrictions that many aspiring Russian scientists, let alone their foreign collaborators, have learned to hate. The travel and security restrictions that some Russian physicists are currently protesting against are just the most recent example of the harassment to which the apparatchiks subject scientists (see Nature, Russian physicists protest government consolidation; 2012). Worse, favouritism and corruption pervade science and higher education - there is bribery from the lowest levels, with students paying teachers in exchange for passing exams, to the highest.
If science is to have a constructive role in shaping Russia's future, Putin must tackle these problems as forcefully as possible.
Economists say that a key test of his leadership will be how far he is prepared to go to reform the economy; his agenda should also include kick-starting overdue scientific reform. Rather than relying on the advice of an exclusive inner circle of buddies and dignitaries, as he has in the past, Putin should set up a truly independent scientific advisory council, ideally involving foreign scientists, to guide him through the necessary changes. Russia's partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, which will help to set up a new research university in Skolkovo, near Moscow, is a first step in that direction. The creation of a well-funded granting agency for university research, with transparent and fair procedures, would be a perfect sequel.
Russia has its own rich traditions and intellectual culture. It need not imitate the scientific landscape of any foreign nation, but the blindness of parts of its scientific establishment to the necessity of change borders on negligence. It is time for that establishment to throw overboard the stubborn obscurantism that stands in the way of a renaissance of Russia's proud scientific past.

Российскому биологу Даниэлю Ступину удалось сделать уникальные макрофотографии водных организмов, невидимых невооруженным глазом.

Un jeune russe spécialiste de biologie marine est parvenu à réaliser d'incroyables images d'organismes aquatiques invisibles à l'œil nu, à partir d'un microscope optique.
Entre l'art et la science, son cœur balance. Daniel Stoupin, 25 ans, ex-étudiant en biologie marine à l'Université de Moscou et de Cologne s'est choisi une voie bien à lui : celle de la photomicrographie. Cette technique photographique consiste à réaliser des images d'organismes ou de structures observés à l'aide d'un microscope.
Sous l'œil averti de Daniel Stoupin, la parade des minuscules créatures d'eau douce adopte ainsi des aspects fascinants. Pour en arriver à un tel résultat, le biologiste a effectué plusieurs prises de vue avec son microscope optique. "Je fais beaucoup de plans d'un même objet et combine ensuite les images grâce à un logiciel d'ordinateur", explique-t-il au Dailymail. Cette tâche extrêmement complexe représente pour chaque image entre plusieurs jours voire semaines de travail.
Pour accentuer les contrastes de l'image et mettre en relief les organismes pour la plupart transparents, le photographe a ensuite recourt à l'utilisation de techniques d'imagerie moléculaire. Il développe au Daily wired : "J'utilise des verres polarisés qui rendent les muscles et les structures fibrillaires très lumineux, ainsi que la microscopie à fluorescence, qui permet d'obtenir des couleurs vives. Peu d'animaux ont une fluorescence naturelle, je dois donc utiliser des produits chimiques afin de les rendre observables".
Bien que ses créations adoptent un sens esthétique incontestable, Daniel Stoupin lui ne perd pas de vue l'objectif principal de son entreprise à savoir : trouver une application de ces méthodes de photographie pour le monde de la recherche. Quand à ses aspirations pour le futur, il confie : "Mon désir est de mettre en place un vrai studio. La faune microscopique reste largement ignorée par la communauté scientifique, mais c'est pourtant la majorité des organismes vivants sur Terre".

В середине 1980-х ученые впервые обнаружили, что во время грозы нейтронные детекторы регистрируют мощный поток свободных нейтронов. Однако гипотеза о том, что поток генерируют именно разряды молний, была поставлена под сомнение. Феномен объясняли либо изменением траектории мюонов космических лучей, либо фотоядерными реакциями, когда под воздействием гамма-излучения ядра атомов испускают нейтроны.
После серии экспериментов учёные из Физического института им. П.Н.Лебедева (ФИАН) и ряда других НИИ России и Казахстана опровергли обе версии и установили прямую связь между грозовыми разрядами и показаниями детекторов. Зарегистрированные нейтроны низких энергий не имеют отношения к космическим лучам, а возникающее во время грозы гамма-излучение слишком мало для генерации такого количества частиц. Либо в молниях протекают какие-то неизвестные науке процессы, либо фотоядерные реакции проходят не совсем так, как считалось до сих пор.
Статья "Strong Flux of Low-Energy Neutrons Produced by Thunderstorms" опубликована в журнале Physical Review Letters (2012, Vol. 108, iss. 12).

For the last 30 years there has been a very small controversy rumbling in the hallowed halls of physics. Way back in 1985, scientists from the then-USSR noted that whenever a thunder storm passed over their neutron detector, they observed an increased flux of neutrons.
Unfortunately, they didn't have much in the way of monitoring equipment to really nail down much beyond the initial observation.
Since then, scientists have put forward a couple of potential explanations for the observed flux. One was that the high fields generated during lightning strikes was modifying the trajectories of muons from cosmic ray showers. In short: these are cosmic rays, and this is not interesting. The second was that the gamma rays emitted during the lightning strike generated neutrons, a photonuclear event. But new measurements show that neither of these explanations can explain the data.
The (now) Russian scientists have designed an entirely new experiment that significantly improves their previous results. They installed three neutron detectors that were sensitive to low energy neutrons: one above ground, one partially shielded in a building, and a third underground with heavier shielding. Sitting next to the underground detector was a more traditional neutron detector that is sensitive to high energy neutrons. Finally, the electrical activity of incoming storms was monitored using a variety of instruments, allowing for better correlation between the neutron measurements and the electrical activity of any passing storms.
Why the variety of neutron detectors? Essentially, the researchers need to get rid of the background noise from cosmic rays. The cosmic rays generate muons that collide with something in or very near the detector, resulting in neutrons that have the high energy of the muon being registered. Neutrons from lightning, on the other hand, can only have the energy given up by a fission event, which is then lost in collisions with molecules in the air as they travel to the detector.
The data obtained by the researchers show clear spikes in the low-energy neutron detectors at the same time as the electrical discharges from a storm. Unfortunately, the time resolution of the neutron detectors is only 1 minute, so it is impossible to extract any detailed information about the neutron flux. The use of the three shielded detectors, however, shows the expected decay behavior, indicating that the neutrons are not generated within the detectors themselves.
The high-energy neutron detector also showed some activity during the storm, but this is because the detector still has some sensitivity for low-energy neutrons. Once this was taken into account, the four detectors all agreed. In short, cosmic rays are not the source for the neutron flux observed during lightning strikes.
The new detectors also allowed the researchers to calculate the neutron flux from the storm activity. In the previous experiments, it had been assumed that each detection event corresponded to a single neutron. In a surprising turn up, the new data show that up to 5000 neutrons per cubic meter are produced every second by lightning strikes.
This is very high, and not very compatible with the alternate explanation, neutron production by high energy photons (gamma rays). To generate the number of neutrons the researchers observe would take about 10 million gamma ray photons m-3s-1. Unfortunately, lightning strikes only generate a tiny fraction of that.
At the moment, this research is not of Earth-shattering importance. But it does point to things going on thunderstorms that we just don't know about yet. And that is quite exciting. It is also important to realize that this isn't going to revolutionize our understanding of nuclear physics, so these observations aren't going to lead to new reactor designs or free energy. Still, we will learn more about thunderstorms, which is pretty cool.

1 марта в Квебеке главы космических агентств США, Канады, Европы, Японии и России подвели итоги работы Международной космической станции и обсудили вопросы дальнейшего сотрудничества.

Les Chefs des agences spatiales américaine, canadienne, européenne, japonaise et russe, partenaires du programme de Station spatiale internationale (ISS), se sont réunis le 1er mars 2012 à Québec (Canada) pour passer en revue les avancées scientifiques, technologiques et sociales découlant de leur collaboration et les possibilités d'étendre son utilité en poussant encore plus loin l'exploration humaine de l'espace.
Revenant sur l'histoire du développement de l'ISS et sur l'entrée récente dans une phase productive de recherche et d'application, les partenaires ont axé leurs discussions sur trois grands axes de réussite du programme : réalisations techniques historiques, partenariat international sans précédent et progrès scientifique en marche. Les Chefs d'agence ont constaté que l'exploration humaine de l'espace continuait à faire bénéficier la société d'apports précieux et à renforcer les partenariats entre puissances spatiales.
Les Chefs d'agence ont également reconnu le nouveau potentiel de découverte résultant de l'optimisation des capacités de recherche de l'ISS, la montée en puissance des initiatives commerciales et l'intérêt éducatif de cette présence permanente dans l'espace. Les recherches conduites en biologie, biotechnologie et physiologie humaine ouvrent de nouvelles perspectives pour la santé, avec le développement d'applications prometteuses en soutien de futures thérapies médicales.
Les nombreux travaux menés sur les fluides et les matériaux laissent également présager la mise au point de matériaux et de procédés de fabrication toujours plus efficaces et intelligents. Les activités d'astronomie dans le rayonnement X, de physique des particules de haute énergie ou de télédétection terrestre réalisées depuis l'ISS augurent quant à elles des découvertes à attendre d'une utilisation accrue de l'ISS comme plate-forme d'accueil et d'exploitation d'un large éventail d'instruments de recherche en science spatiale et science de la Terre.
Les démonstrations portant sur les technologies de régulation d'ambiance, de maintenance robotisée ou encore de télécommunication et de téléopération de pointe permettent d'envisager une éventuelle extension de la présence humaine dans l'espace et de nouvelles améliorations de la qualité de vie sur Terre.
Mettant l'accent sur la force d'inspiration de cette infrastructure spatiale habitée, les Chefs d'agence ont salué le rôle moteur de la Station, qui incite les jeunes du monde entier à s'ouvrir aux sciences et techniques, aux technologies et aux mathématiques. Plus de quarante millions d'élèves ont ainsi déjà partagé une expérience de vol spatial habité à travers des liaisons ou des expérimentations interactives avec l'équipage de l'ISS.
Les premières statistiques biennales d'utilisation publiées par les partenaires (International Space Station Utilization Statistics) mettent en évidence l'élargissement continu de la communauté internationale d'utilisateurs, tandis que leur rapport (International Space Station Benefits for Humanity) rend compte des progrès permis par le programme dans les domaines de l'éducation, de la santé, de l'observation de la Terre et de la gestion des catastrophes - des avancées qui devraient améliorer le quotidien d'une grande partie de l'humanité.
Les partenaires du programme ISS ont commencé à étudier les perspectives à long terme de poursuite de l'exploration humaine de l'espace en vue de prolonger les bénéfices du programme à travers de futures missions d'exploration. À brève échéance, les Chefs d'agence se sont engagés à accroître ensemble l'utilisation de l'ISS comme banc d'essai spatial pour la démonstration de technologies critiques et la prévention des risques que font peser de telles missions sur la santé des équipages. À longue échéance, ils ont examiné comment l'ISS pourrait servir de fondement au développement de capacités d'exploration futures. Le partenariat relatif à l'ISS a mis sur pied une installation spatiale de recherche globale aux capacités inédites, un projet sans équivalent dans l'histoire de l'humanité. Les Chefs d'agence ont réaffirmé l'importance de mettre cette infrastructure au service de la société d'aujourd'hui et de l'utiliser comme base technologique pour préparer l'avenir de l'exploration humaine de l'espace.

Несгоревшие в атмосфере обломки первого советского спутника "Метеор-1-1" упали 27 марта в Антарктиде, в районе Земли Королевы Мод. "Метеор-1-1" был запущен 26 марта 1969 г. с космодрома Плесецк и стал первым полноценным метеорологическим спутником, проработав чуть больше года.

Meteor 1-1, the Soviet Union's first fully operational weather satellite, fell in Antarctica on Tuesday after more than four decades in orbit, the Russian Defense Ministry said.
"According to data provided by the Main Center for Space Reconnaissance, which is part of Russia's Space Forces, fragments of the Meteor 1-1 satellite entered the Earth's atmosphere at 02:17 a.m. Moscow time on Tuesday [22:17 GMT Monday]," Space Forces spokesman Col. Alexey Zolotukhin said.
The official added that the defunct satellite fell in the Queen Maud Land region of Antarctica, about 690 kilometers (430 miles) from Argentinian research station of Belgrano II.
The Meteor satellite series was developed in the Soviet Union during the 1960s. On March 26, 1969, a Vostok rocket launched Meteor 1-1, the very first version of the Soviet Meteor satellite network, into orbit. The satellite terminated operations in July 1970.
Weighing between 1,200 and 1,400 kilograms, the Meteor 1-1 spacecraft was originally placed in orbit at an altitude of 650 km. Two solar panels were automatically oriented toward the sun to provide the spacecraft with the maximum amount of solar power.
Meteor 1-1 provided near-global observations of the earth's weather systems, cloud cover, ice and snow fields, and reflected and emitted radiation from the dayside and nightside of the earth-atmosphere system for operational use by the Soviet meteorological service.
Some of the processed data and TV pictures from the satellite were distributed to meteorological centers around the world.
The Russian government is planning to restore the Soviet network of weather satellites, which could help monitor weather and climate conditions across the country's nine time zones. Currently, Russia has to use meteorological data from U.S. and European weather agencies.

К 2030 г. Роскосмос планирует осуществить пилотируемый облет Луны с возможной высадкой экипажа на поверхность.

A spacecraft will "conduct a demonstrative manned circumlunar test flight with the subsequent landing of cosmonauts on [the Moon's] surface and their return to Earth" by 2030, according to a leaked strategy document from Russia's space agency, Roskosmos. Moscow has periodically announced ambitious plans for space exploration in recent years, but this is the first time a firm deadline has been set for a manned lunar mission.
Russia won the first round of the space race when it launched the first man to orbit the Earth, Yuri Gagarin, in 1961. Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin Jr, however, fulfilled John F Kennedy's promise to reach the Moon by the end of the decade, landing there on July 20, 1969, with Nasa's Apollo 11. The Soviet Union subsequently cancelled its lunar programmes.
Plans to send cosmonauts to the Moon could help revive Russia's space programme after a troubled period. A series of satellites crashed last year and in January the Mars probe, Fobos Grunt, fell to Earth after a faulty launch two months earlier. Last week, Roskosmos suffered another humiliation after reports that the head of the agency, Vladimir Popovkin, had sustained head injuries after an alleged brawl at work.
Yury Karash, a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Cosmonautics, said that prestige would not be restored with a symbolic flight to the Moon. "Back in the 1960s the Soviet Union was competing head-to-head with the United States," he said. "But it is hard to find a better way to hurt Russian prestige and emphasise Russian technological backwardness than by sending cosmonauts to the Moon around 2030, 60 years after Apollo."
Mr Karash said resources would be better spent on funding a manned flight to Mars, which would stimulate science because of the demand for new technology to serve a 450-day round trip to the Red Planet.
The Soviet Union had two Moon programmes which it closed in the 1970s after the success of Apollo 11. The US knew about them, but their existence was not admitted publicly until 1990.
In the post-Soviet era, Russia has co-operated with other countries on Mir and the International Space Station (ISS). It currently shoulders the burden of shuttling supplies to the ISS in Soyuz capsules. Vladimir Putin, Russia's prime minister and president-elect, wants to restore Russia's space programme to its former glory.
Speaking last year on the 50th anniversary of Gagarin's flight, he said: "Russia should not limit itself to the role of an international space ferryman."
Mr Putin said piloted space missions should be revived by 2018, when the first flights are expected from Vostochny, a $13.5billion (£8.6 billion) spaceport being built in Russia's far east.
The Soviet Union, the United States and China are the only countries so far to have launched manned space flights. India's space agency declared in 2010 that it wanted to launch a human mission to the Moon by 2020, and scientists have indicated that China could do the same by 2025.
Barack Obama, the US president, said in 2010 that he hoped to send astronauts to Mars by the 2030s, but he cut funding for robotic missions to the planet last month. He also cancelled George W Bush's plan to return astronauts to the Moon by 2020.
Scientists believe that precious metals and Helium-3, a rare isotope that has potential for power generation, could be extracted from the Moon's surface. Roskosmos has also suggested that a base built on the Moon could be used as a launch pad for a flight to Mars.

В начале апреля будет принято окончательное решение по поводу участия России в совместном с Европой проекте исследования Марса "ExoMars",

WASHINGTON - The ruling council of the European Space Agency (ESA) on March 15 agreed to continue funding a Mars telecommunications orbiter and atmospheric gas analyzer mission for launch in 2016, which along with an entry, descent and landing module will be launched on a Russian Proton rocket donated by the Russian space agency, an ESA official said March 15.
The council's decision will permit the ExoMars industrial team led by Thales Alenia Space of France and Italy to proceed with work on the 2016 mission under a full development contract.
Industrial work up to now had been funded in a series of small tranches as ESA governments reviewed their options following NASA's decision earlier this year to withdraw from the ExoMars project.
ExoMars is a two-mission project that is considered as a single program at ESA. The second mission, scheduled for launch in 2018, will carry an ESA-built Mars rover and a second entry, descent and landing module, this one built 80 percent by Russia and 20 percent by ESA, according to the ESA official.
As ESA managers had hoped, the arrival of the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, into the ExoMars partnership has saved the mission. NASA originally had agreed to provide Atlas 5 rockets for the 2016 and 2018 launches, and to divide with ESA the cost of the 2018 rover.
The ESA council has removed the immediate pressure on the program by agreeing to continue funding the 2016 mission. That funding was set to end by early April. The council nonetheless asked ESA Director-General Jean-Jacques Dordain to verify that it was not already too late to complete the ExoMars orbiter and the entry, descent and landing module and make the 2016 launch date.
Thales Alenia Space officials have said they could make the 2016 deadline if there were no more stops and starts to the program's funding. Dordain is expected to confirm this by early April, a decision that would permit ESA's check-writing body, the Industrial Policy Committee, to continue the money flow to the industrial team.
An option to delay ExoMars by two years, with launches in 2018 and 2020, was scrapped as an unnecessary waste of money as it would maintain the industrial team in place for two additional years.
But while the council decision removes an immediate problem for ExoMars, it does not solve the longer-term funding issue that has dogged the project for years.
ESA governments have approved an ExoMars spending limit of 1 billion euros ($1.3 billion). But despite more than three years of effort, program managers have been unable to secure more than 850 million euros in formal commitments from ESA member states.
Meanwhile, NASA's decision to pull out of the ExoMars campaign riled some of the agency's congressional overseers. Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), chairman of the House Appropriations commerce, justice, science subcommittee, in late February denied NASA's request to take money Congress appropriated for ExoMars and use it instead to begin planning a new U.S.-led, $700 million-class Mars mission that would launch in 2018 or 2020. Wolf's objection opens the possibility that work on several NASA-funded ExoMars instruments could remain funded through at least September.
But one U.S. scientist said Wolf's maneuver would do nothing to get a U.S.-built instrument on the 2016 ExoMars mission. "It's too late for … Trace Gas Orbiter," said Alfred McEwen, a professor of planetary geology at Arizona State University and principle investigator for the High Resolution Color Imager, one of four instruments NASA had planned to contribute to the 2016 orbiter.
"ESA wants to have a high-resolution imager on their 2016 mission, but the hitch is they need a commitment from NASA. And even if NASA comes up with money to support us in 2012, that's not enough for a 2016 launch. In spite of the House's action which says "keep working on the Trace Gas Orbiter mission," it's not possible to actually do so."
With NASA out of the picture, ExoMars now becomes even more expensive as ESA will be responsible for 100 percent of the costs of the 2018 rover and 20 percent of the work on the Russian-led lander for 2018.
Program officials had said these new charges could swell ESA's total ExoMars obligations to around 1.2 billion euros.
In an interview, the ESA official agreed that new funds would need to be found. The most likely scenario, the official said, is that ESA's 19 member governments will be asked to provide fresh support for the project when they meet in November in Italy.
That meeting's agenda had already been stressed by the debt crisis that has gripped many governments in Europe, including Italy, which is the lead ESA contributor to ExoMars.
One official said that NASA's 2010 decision not to co-develop a large space science mission with ESA had left a potential source of funds in ESA's science budget. ESA science officials have said they may have to cancel that mission because without NASA it is too expensive.
The ESA official said that with ExoMars now taking on more scientific instruments, many provided by Russia, ExoMars backers may be able to persuade Europe's space scientists to take part in the program. That would require the approval of the Science Program Committee, which decides Europe's space science priorities within ESA's budget.
The official said ESA is examining several possible funding sources, and had not ruled out a possible partial return of NASA to the 2018 portion of ExoMars, albeit in a relatively minor role.

30 марта с космодрома Байконур был запущен спутник Минобороны России. На орбиту его вывели с помощью последней оставшейся в арсенале ракеты-носителя "Протон-К".
Ракета-носитель тяжелого класса "Протон-К" была создана на базе ракеты УР-500 и запускалась с 1967 года, всего осуществлено более 300 запусков. На портале NASASpaceFlight.com - история "Протона".

After 45 years in service Russia's Proton-K rocket has made its 311th and final launch Friday morning, on a mission to deploy an early warning satellite for the Russian Aerospace Defence Forces with the aid of a Blok DM-2 upper stage. Launch was on schedule at 05:49 UTC (11:49 local time), from Area 81/24 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome.
Proton-K's Final Launch - The History:
The Proton-K was developed from the UR-500 missile, part of Vladimir Chelomei's series of Universal Rockets intended to provide commonality between rockets serving in all roles from intercontinental ballistic missiles up to orbital launch systems capable of sending manned missions to Mars.
The UR-500 was originally designed as a missile capable of placing six nuclear warheads into low Earth orbit, and the initial design consisted of four UR-200 missiles clustered around a third stage derived from the UR-200's second stage.
The design grew into a two-stage rocket capable of delivering a 100 megaton nuclear warhead, and while the concept of clustering existing first and second stages was abandoned, to reduce the vehicle's height the first stage fuel tanks of the new design were clustered around the central oxidiser tank; an alternative proposal which would have seen a more traditional arrangement of tanks within the core of the vehicle was rejected because it made the rocket too tall to be practical, and the diameter of the first stage could not be increased without making the stage impossible to transport by railway.
The UR-500 competed against Korolev's N-2 and Yangel's R-46 for the Global Rocket 2 specification. Development was approved in April 1962, however by 1965 plans to use the vehicle as a missile had been abandoned. Development continued, but as an orbital launch system, and work on developing a third stage began in order to increase the rocket's payload capacity.
The UR-500 made its first flight on 16 July 1965, orbiting an N-4 x-ray astronomy satellite, which was named Proton 1 upon achieving orbit. In early November, another UR-500 launched Proton 2, and following a failure in March 1966, the fourth and final flight orbited Proton 3 in July 1966.
The UR-500 was replaced by a three-stage rocket derived from it, which was later named the Proton-K after the satellites launched by the two-stage version. The Proton-K could fly either in a three-stage configuration, or a four stage configuration with an additional upper stage.
Its maiden flight was successfully conducted on 10 March 1967, in a four-stage configuration with a Blok D upper stage, the first in a series of tests of Soyuz 7K-L1P and 7K-L1 spacecraft ahead of a proposed manned circumlunar flight. This launch deployed Kosmos 154 into a highly elliptical orbit.
Although the Proton has become a reliable workhorse of the Russian space programme, it was not always this way. During the 1960s it had one of the worst reliability records of any launch system, and the Proton-K still holds the record for the most orbital launch failures in a year: of ten launches attempted in 1969, eight ended in failure. As a result of its initially high failure rate, the Proton-K was not declared operational until its sixty-first launch, over ten years after its maiden flight.
The first Proton-K to fail was the second to be launched. Whilst the Proton core vehicle itself performed well, its Blok D fourth stage failed to ignite due to the premature separation of its ullage motors. On the next launch a first stage engine failed 67 seconds after liftoff, and the flight after that suffered a second stage engine failure four seconds into its burn.
After these failures, the fifth flight of the Proton-K was successful, however the payload, named Zond 4 after its successful launch, failed to complete its mission. The next launch then failed due to the guidance system short-circuiting and commanding the second stage to shut down prematurely.
In July 1968, during preparations for the seventh Proton-K launch, the oxidiser tank of the Blok D stage exploded killing three of the technicians working on the vehicle. After this came two successful launches, with the Zond 5 and Zond 6 spacecraft. The ninth launch, which used the three-stage configuration and was the first not in support of the manned Lunar programme, successfully placed the Proton 4 astronomical satellite into low Earth orbit.
The tenth Proton-K launch was its first in 1969, and carried a Soyuz 7K-L1. The launch occurred on 20 January, however it did not achieve orbit due to a second stage engine failure. Just under a month later, a first stage engine failure doomed the second launch of the year; a Proton-K/Blok D carrying the first Luna Ye-8 spacecraft with a Lunokhod rover.
Just over a month after that, the third stage of the next Proton-K failed to ignite during a launch intended to orbit the first of two Mars 2M spacecraft. Less than a week later the other Mars 2M was lost when the fourth Proton launch of the year came down around 50 metres from the launch pad after a first stage engine failure.
On 14 June, the fifth Proton launch of 1969 also failed when its Blok D upper stage failed to ignite to send a Luna Ye-8-5 sample-return spacecraft to the Moon. The sixth launch of the year came a month later, and was the first success of the year, deploying the Luna 15 sample-return mission. Despite its successful launch, however, Luna 15 was subsequently lost when it attempted to land on the Moon. Another successful launch occurred in early August, deploying Zond 7; the most successful test flight of the Soyuz 7K-L1.
Two Blok D failures ended the next two Proton launches, which occurred in late September and October, leaving two lunar sample return missions in low Earth orbit. The first of the two failures was caused by a faulty oxidiser valve, whilst the second was the result of a guidance malfunction. The spacecraft were subsequently named Kosmos 300 and 305. The last launch of the year carried a Soyuz 7K-L1E spacecraft, and was intended to test the Blok D; however the launch failed during first-stage flight.
Following another failure in early 1980, Proton-K No.248-01 was launched on a suborbital test flight carrying instrumentation to monitor the vehicle's performance in an effort to improve its reliability. The flight, designated 82-EV, was successful, and resulted in a marked improvement in the Proton-K's success rate; the next five missions were all successful, and included the deployment of the Soviet Union's first successful sample-return mission to the Moon, and its first successful lunar rover, Lunokhod 1.
In April 1971, a Proton-K launched Salyut 1, the first space station. Proton-K rockets launched all of the Soviet Salyut and Almaz space stations, as well as all modules of Mir except for the Stykovochnyy Otsek docking module delivered by the Space Shuttle, and the Zarya and Zvezda modules of the International Space Station.
Not all of the space station launches were successful; the second DOS (Salyut) station was lost in 1972 due to a second stage malfunction. The Proton-K was also used to deploy probes to the Moon, Mars and Venus, as well as to provide the Soviet Union with the ability to place satellites into geosynchronous orbit.
Of the 311 Proton-K launches, thirty flew with no upper stage, the most recent being in 2000 with the Zvezda module of the International Space Station.
Launches without upper stages have carried nine Salyut and Almaz space stations, eight TKS spacecraft, three Almaz radar imaging satellites, six modules for the Mir space station and two for the ISS, as well as the Proton 4 astronomical satellite, and the 82-EV test flight.
Forty launches, conducted between 1967 and 1976, used the Blok D upper stage, all of which were probes to the Moon, Mars and Venus, or tests in support of the manned lunar programme. The Blok D-1 was used as the fourth stage of ten Proton-Ks, launched between 1978 and 1989 carrying six Venera probes to Venus, the two Vega probes to Venus and Halley's Comet, and the Astron and Granat observatories. The Blok D-2 was used to launch the two Fobos missions to Mars' moon Phobos in 1988, and the failed Mars 96 mission in 1996.
The Blok DM, which was used for 66 flights between 1974 and 1990, was used for geosynchronous launches; deploying Raduga, Ekran, Gorizont, Molniya and Potok communications satellites and US-KS missile detection spacecraft. The most commonly used upper stage has been the Blok DM-2, which is being used for the 109th time on a Proton-K for Friday's launch since its introduction in 1982. Initially used to launch mostly
Uragan satellites for the GLONASS navigation system, the Proton-K/DM-2 took over geosynchronous launches in the late 1980s when the original Blok DM was phased out. It also launched Luch, Gals and Ekspress communications satellites, the one-off nuclear test monitoring satellite Kosmos 1940, the Elektro-1 weather satellite, US-KMO missile detection spacecraft which replaced the US-KS series, and two Tselina-2 ELINT spacecraft before the Zenit-2 was ready to begin launching the type.
The Blok DM-2M upper stage was used for fourteen launches of communications satellites into geosynchronous orbit, plus one flight which deployed three Uragan spacecraft into a medium Earth orbit. For two launches with Arkas satellites, one in 1997 and the other in 2002, the Blok DM-5 upper stage was used. Between 1999 and 2003, four early Briz-M flights used Proton-K rockets, beginning with the failed launch of a Raduga satellite, followed by successful missions with a Gorizont spacecraft, the AMC-9 commercial communications satellite, and finally three Uragan satellites.
In 1996, International Launch Services began to conduct commercial Proton launches using the Proton-K and an array of upper stages derived from the Blok DM-2, 2M and 5. These were confusingly designated Blok DM1 to 4, without the hyphens seen in the other designations. The Blok DM1 was a commercial version of the Blok DM-2, used for a single launch in 2006 carrying Inmarsat-3 F2.
The DM2, which was derived from the Blok DM-5, was used to launch three groups of seven Iridium communications satellites in 1997 and 1998, and to orbit the Integral astronomy satellite in 2002. The DM3 was the most used of the commercial stages, making 24 launches between 1996 and 2002. The DM4 made only one launch, in 1997 with Telstar 5. Both the DM3 and DM4 were derivatives of the Blok DM-2M, each featuring different attachment fittings for the payload.
In addition to these launches, the launch of KazSat-1 in June 2006 was reported to have used a Blok DM-3 upper stage. Given that the Blok DM-03 did not enter service until December 2010, it is unclear which upper stage was used by this launch, however it is generally considered to have been either a Blok DM3, or a Blok DM-2, probably the former.
Despite the Proton-K's retirement, Proton launches will continue for the foreseeable future; the Proton-M, a derivative of the Proton-K with increased performance, entered service in 2001, and has taken over the commercial and Russian government launches previously conducted by the Proton-K. Primarily used in combination with the Briz-M upper stage, the Proton-M has also flown with Blok DM-2 and DM-03 upper stages.
The payload for the final Proton-K launch is a US-KMO missile detection spacecraft, which will be operated as part of the Oko network of early-warning satellites. US-KMO, or "Upravlyaemy Sputnik Kontinenty Morya Okeany", consists of satellites placed into geosynchronous orbit to monitor missile launches via infrared telescopes. They augment the US-K satellites in Molniya orbits, the most recent of which was launched in September 2010 on the final Molniya-M carrier rocket.
US-KMO replaced the earlier US-KS series of geosynchronous missile detection satellites. Seven US-KS spacecraft were launched between 1975 and 1997, and Friday's launch is the eighth US-KMO, the first of which launched in 1991. When fully operational, the geosynchronous element of the Oko system consists of two satellites, one at a longitude of 24 degrees west and the other at 12 degrees east, with spares kept at a longitude of 80 degrees east. The geosynchronous slots used by the satellites are assigned under the codename Prognoz, resulting in that name also being used to refer to the geosynchronous satellites.
At liftoff, the Proton-K/DM-2 had a mass of around 700 tonnes. The lower three stages were fuelled by unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine, or UDMH, oxidised by dinitrogen tetroxide. Powered by six RD-253 engines, the first stage generated up to 10.7 meganewtons of thrust. The second stage can generate up to 2.36 meganewtons of thrust, and was propelled by four RD-0210 engines.
The third stage had a single RD-0210 which generates 583 kilonewtons of thrust. The Blok DM-2 was fuelled by RP-1 propellant and liquid oxygen oxidiser, and was powered by an 11D58M engine and two SOZ attitude control thrusters. The Proton-K being used for Friday's launch had the serial number 410-19.
About 1.6 seconds before launch, the first stage engines ignited at 10 percent thrust, ramping up to full power when the countdown reached zero. Around half a second later, the rocket lifted off, with the engines reaching full thrust one second after the countdown reaching zero.
About 117 seconds after launch, the first stage approached the end of its burn, and the second stage ignited. Ignition occurred before stage separation, with the second stage exhaust channelled through a mesh interstage. Around four seconds after the second stage ignited, the first stage separated.
Three hundred and thirty seconds into the flight, with the vehicle approaching second stage separation, the third stage vernier engines ignited. Around 2.7 seconds later, the second stage shut down, separating from the vehicle 0.7 seconds after cutoff. The third stage main engine ignited 2.4 seconds after staging. About 8.4 seconds after ignition, the payload fairing separated from around the payload.
About 567 seconds into the mission, the third stage's main engine cut off, followed ten seconds later by the verniers. Five seconds after this, the Blok DM-2 separated from the third stage, to begin the next phase of the ascent. The Blok DM-2 will insert its payload directly into geosynchronous orbit, an ascent requiring a number of burns over several hours, to raise the altitude of the spacecraft's orbit and reduce its inclination.
The Proton launched from Area 81/24 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. One of four launch pads built to accommodate the Proton, Pad 24 is one of two which remains active, along with Pad 39 at Area 200.
First used in November 1967, 81/24 was the second Proton launch pad to become operational after 81/23. It was the launch site for the Salyut 1, Salyut 4 and Salyut 6 space stations, as well as several missions to Mars, Venus and the Moon.
Friday's launch was the twelfth of 2012, and the third Proton and fourth Russian launch of the year. The next Proton launch is expected to occur next month, when International Launch Services will use a Proton-M with a Briz-M upper stage to place the YahSat-1B communications satellite into orbit.

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