The Baikonur Explosion that Took the Life of Marshal Nedelin
5 Articles
5 Articles
At the Baikonur launch pad, there is half an hour left until the planned flight. The R-16 rocket is loaded and soldiers, engineers and technicians are moving around it. At 18:45 local time on October 24, 1960, instead of a countdown, a fire breaks out. The second stage engine is turned on prematurely while the rocket is still on the ground. The flame pierces the first stage tank, the fuel ignites and within seconds the launch pad is engulfed in …
This is exactly what happened in Baikonur: the premature ignition of an R-16 rocket engine caused an explosion that killed at least 74 people, including Marshal Mitrofan Nedelin himself. The whole thing was made up for almost thirty years. [...]
A major explosion occurs at the Soviet Baikonur Cosmodrome when, at the instigation of the head of the program, Field Marshal Mitrofan Ivanovich Nedelin, preparations for a test launch of an R-16 intercontinental ballistic missile are rushed, in violation of safety regulations. The unstable fuel of the Soviet rockets (a mixture of liquid oxygen and kerosene) had not yet been completely drained when […] The article AS OF TODAY – October 24, 1960:…
On the evening of October 24, 1960, at the Baikonur test site, the Soviet Union was preparing to launch the R-16 intercontinental ballistic missile for the first time. Technicians and officers were still working around the already fueled device. Suddenly, the second-stage engine ignited. Its flame burned the lower part of the rocket, starting a fire that left people in the center with almost no time to escape. Among the dead was Marshal Mitrofan…
On 24 October, at Baikonur, no missiles were ever launched — for more than half a century this date has been the day of the memory of the testers who lost their lives in the development of Soviet missile equipment — a tradition that emerged after two disasters at the launch site at exactly three years apart, the worst of which happened 66 years ago and claimed dozens of lives, including the first Commander-in-Chief of the Strategic Forces of Mar…
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