Polyot pourrait perdre le contrat de fabrication des Sterkh

Les deux derniers satellites Sterkh ne seront jamais opérationnels et Roscosmos va probablement chercher un autre fabriquant, aux dépens de NPO Poyot.


Due to the failure of two Sterkh rescue navigation satellites soon after launch, Russian space agency, Roskosmos, could drop the project's main contractor -- NPO Polyot -- the head of the agency, Anatoly Perminov, told the official RIA Novosti news agency on January 19, 2010. Perminov confirmed previous unofficial reports about the failure of both Sterkh satellites. Perminov said that ground control still tried to retrieve useful engineering data from one of the satellites, however it was clear from his statement that neither spacecraft could be used operationally.

According to postings on the forum of the Novosti Kosmonavtiki magazine in October 2009, a defect in the flight control system caused the first Sterkh satellite to orient its solar panels away from the Sun, thus draining the onboard power supply system. In the meantime, a second satellite was not able to maintain a proper attitude control in space due to the failure of a special stabilization boom to deploy. It is probably the second satellite, which, at least maintained contact with the ground.

http://www.russianspaceweb.com/sterkh.html#failure