Nedelin catastrophe

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The Nedelin catastrophe or Nedelin disaster (so-called because Marshal Mitrofan Nedelin was killed) was a launch pad accident that occurred on 24 October 1960, at Baikonur Cosmodrome during the development of the Soviet R-16 ICBM. As a prototype of the missile was being prepared for a test flight, it exploded on the launch pad when its second stage engines ignited prematurely, killing many military personnel, engineers, and technicians working on the project. The official death toll was 78, but estimates are as high as 150, with 120 being the generally accepted figure.^{[citation needed]} Despite the magnitude of the disaster, news of it was covered up for many years and the Soviet government did not acknowledge the event until 1989. Strategic Rocket Forces Marshal Mitrofan Nedelin was the commander of the R-16 development program.

Launch preparations

On 23 October, the R-16 rocket prototype was on the launching pad awaiting final tests before its firing. The missile was over 30 m long, 3.0 m in diameter and had a launch weight of 141 tons. The rocket was fueled with Devil's Venom — hypergolic UDMH-nitric acid — which was used in this missile, even though it is extremely corrosive and toxic (the reaction produces poisonous gas), because of the high boiling temperatures and hence storability of the fuel and oxidizer. While these risks were accounted for in the safety procedures in preparing the rocket for launching, extreme schedule pressure, arising from Nedelin's insistence on launching prior to the November 7th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, resulted in numerous safety procedures being ignored in order to save time ^[1]. Late that day, technicians accidentally ruptured the pyrotechnic membranes of the first-stage fuel lines and allowed the fuel into the combustion chamber. Although that was not immediately dangerous, the fuel's nitric acid component was so corrosive it could not be in the fuel lines for more than two days without seriously damaging the rocket. Thus, the rocket team had either to launch the next day or drain the fuel from the rocket and then rebuild the engine, and so delay the program several weeks. The rocketeers decided to fire the rocket and accelerated preparations. Several other rocket components were tested that day and either replaced or adjusted according to procedure. Nedelin notified military dignitaries of the launch so that they could go to the site and see it.^{[citation needed]}

Accident

On 24 October launching preparations continued. So much work remained that some procedures were performed simultaneously. Nedelin, impatient with the delay, left the military dignitaries in the observation post and returned to the launching pad to oversee the preparations of the rocket; he set a chair beside it.^{[citation needed]}

The second stage engines fired immediately. The flames cut into the first-stage fuel tanks below and an enormous explosion occurred shortly thereafter. Automatically activated cinema cameras set around the launching pad filmed the explosion. People near the rocket were instantly incinerated; those farther away were burned to death or poisoned by the resulting toxic gases. Andrei Sakharov described many details—as soon as the engines were fired, most of the personnel there ran to the perimeter but were trapped in it by the security fence and then engulfed in the fireball of burning fuel. The resultant explosion incinerated Nedelin, a top aide, the USSR's top missile guidance designer, and seventy-one other officers and engineers.^[2] Mikhail Yangel and a range officer survived the incident because they had left to smoke a cigarette behind a bunker a few hundred yards away.^[2][3] Eighty-four soldiers and officers were buried in a common grave in the Leninsk town park.^{[citation needed]}

Aftermath

Complete secrecy was immediately imposed on the events of 24 October by Nikita Khrushchev. A news release stated that Nedelin had died in a plane crash and the families of the other engineers were advised to say their loved ones had died of the same cause. Khrushchev also ordered Leonid Brezhnev to assemble a commission and head to the launch site to investigate. Among other things, the commission found that many more people were present on the launch pad than should have been — most were supposed to be safely offsite in bunkers.^{[citation needed]}

According to Sergei Khrushchev, Brezhnev had insisted that the commission did not intend to punish anyone, explaining that "The guilty have already been punished".

An honor guard at the tomb of killed during the test R-16 October 24, 1960, the city of Baikonur.

Afterwards, Yangel was asked by Nikita Khrushchev "But why have you remained alive?" («А ты почему остался жив?»). Yangel answered in a trembling voice - "Walked away for a smoke. It's all my fault" («Отошел покурить. Во всем виноват я»). Later he suffered a heart attack and was out of work for months.^[4]

After the committee presented its report, the R-16 rocket program was resumed in January 1961 with its first successful flight that November. The delay to the R-16 spurred the USSR toward the development of more effective ICBMs and sparked Khrushchev's decision to install IRBMs in Cuba. Before the disaster Yangel had ambitions to challenge Sergei Korolev as leader of the Manned Space program, but he was directed to focus on the R-16.^{[citation needed]}

A memorial to the dead was erected near Baikonur^[when?] and is still visited by RKA officials before any manned launch.^[5]

Official acknowledgment

A news release stated that Nedelin had died "in a plane crash while on an undisclosed mission".^[6][7] The Italian news agency Continentale first reported on December 8, from undisclosed sources, that Marshal Nedelin and 100 people had been killed in a rocket explosion.^[8] The Guardian reported on October 16, 1965, that captured spy Oleg Penkovsky had confirmed details of the missile accident,^[9] and exiled scientist Zhores Medvedev provided further details in 1976 in the British weekly magazine New Scientist.^[10] However, it was not until April 16, 1989, that the Soviet Union acknowledged the events, with a report appearing in the weekly newsmagazine Ogoniok.^[11]

Bibliography

• Khrushchev, Sergei. Nikita Khrushchev and the Creation of a Superpower. Pennsylvania State University Press, Pennsylvania, 2000. Translated by Shirley Benson. pp 416–425.
• Harford, James. Korolev — How One Man Masterminded the Soviet Drive to Beat America to the Moon. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, 1997. pp 119–120.
• Chertok, Boris. Missiles and People: Fili-Podlipki-Tyuratam. Moscow, Mashinostroyeniye Publishing House, 1996. (In Russian)
• Boris Chertok (author). Rockets and People, Volume 2: Creating a Rocket Industry, 2006. ISBN 0-16-076672-9. Published by NASA.
• Sheehan, Neil, A Fiery Peace in a Cold War, Random House, New York, 2009, p 405.

References

External links

• Nedelin Disaster on RussianSpaceWeb.com
• Video Cosmos
• Nedelin Disaster on aerospaceweb.org
• The Nedelin Catastrophe — article from Air & Space Magazine
• Video clip

Coordinates: 45°58′32″N 63°39′35″E / 45.97542°N 63.65982°E / 45.97542; 63.65982