View source for Nedelin catastrophe

{{more footnotes|date=October 2011}}
{{Expand Russian|Катастрофа на Байконуре (1960)|date=December 2016}}
{{Infobox event
| title                    = Nedelin Catastrophe
| image                    = Nedelin_catastrophe.jpg
| image_size               =
| image_alt                =
| caption                  = The explosion
| native_name              = Катастрофа на космодроме Байконур
| native_name_lang         = 
| english_name             = The Catastrophe at Baikonur Cosmodrome
| time                     = 18:45
| duration                 =
| date                     = {{start date|1960|10|24}}
| venue                    = [[Baikonur Cosmodrome]]
| location                 = {{flag|USSR}}
| coordinates              = <!-- {{coord|LAT|LON|region:XXXX_type:event|display=inline,title}} -->
| also_known_as            = Nedelin disaster 
| type                     = Rocket explosion
| theme                    =
| cause                    = [[Short circuit]] in the rocket
| first_reporter           =
| budget                   =
| patron                   = <!-- or |patrons= -->
| organisers               = [[Strategic Missile Troops|Soviet Strategic Missile Troops]]
| filmed_by                =
| participants             =
| outcome                  =
| casualties1              = 120 injured
| casualties2              =
| casualties3              =
| reported deaths          = 78 (92-126 from other sources)
| reported injuries        =
| reported missing         =
| reported property damage =
| burial                   =
| inquiries                =
| publication_bans         =
| litigation               =
| awards                   =
| notes                    =
}}

The '''Nedelin catastrophe''' or '''Nedelin disaster''' was a [[launch pad]] accident that occurred on 24 October 1960 at Baikonur test range (of which [[Baikonur Cosmodrome]] is a part), during the development of the Soviet [[Intercontinental ballistic missile|ICBM]] [[SS-7 Saddler|R-16]]. As a [[prototype]] of the [[missile]] was being prepared for a test flight, an explosion occurred when [[Multistage rocket|second stage]] engines ignited accidentally, killing many military and technical personnel working on the preparations. Despite the magnitude of the disaster, news of it was suppressed for many years and the Soviet government did not acknowledge the event until 1989. The disaster is named after [[Chief Marshal]] of Artillery [[Mitrofan Nedelin|Mitrofan Ivanovich Nedelin]] ({{lang-ru| Митрофан Иванович Неделин}}), who was killed in the explosion. As commanding officer of the Soviet Union's [[Strategic Missile Troops|Strategic Rocket Forces]], Nedelin was head of the [[R-16 (missile)|R-16]] development program.

== Launch preparations ==
On 23 October, the prototype [[R-16 (missile)|R-16]] was installed on [[Baikonur Cosmodrome Site 41|launching pad 41]] ({{lang-ru| ''стартовая позиция 41''}}) awaiting final tests before launch. 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|Devil's Venom]] — a [[Hypergolic propellant|hypergolic]] pairing of [[Unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine|UDMH]] as fuel and a saturated solution of [[dinitrogen tetroxide]] in [[nitric acid]] as the oxidizer — which was used because of the high boiling temperatures and hence storability of the fuel and oxidizer, despite being extremely corrosive and toxic. These risks were accounted for in the safety requirements of the launch procedures, but Nedelin's insistence on performing tests before November 7 (anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution) resulted in extreme schedule pressure, with numerous safety procedures being ignored in order to save time.<ref>Chapter 32 (Catastrophes), http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4110/vol2.pdf Boris Chertok (author). ''Rockets and People, Volume 2: Creating a Rocket Industry'', 2006, ISBN 0-16-076672-9, Published by [[NASA]]</ref>

== Accident ==
A short circuit in the replaced main sequencer caused the second stage engines, while being tested before launch, to fire inadvertently. This detonated the first stage fuel tanks directly below, destroying the missile in an enormous explosion. Before seeking refuge, the camera operator had remotely activated automatic cameras set around the launching pad that filmed the explosion in detail. People near the rocket were instantly incinerated; those farther away were burned to death or poisoned by the toxic fuel component vapors. [[Andrei Sakharov]] described many details&mdash;as soon as the engines fired, most of the personnel there ran to the perimeter, but were trapped inside 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.<ref name="Nuclear Sword">Steve Zaloga, ''The Kremlin's Nuclear Sword: The Rise and Fall of Russia's Strategic Nuclear Forces, 1945-2000'' (Smithsonian Institution Press, 2002) pp 66-67</ref> Missile designer [[Mikhail Yangel]] and the test range commanding officer survived only because they had left to smoke a [[cigarette]] behind a bunker a few hundred yards away, but nonetheless suffered burn injuries<ref name="Nuclear Sword" /><ref>Chris Gainor, ''Into that Silent Sea: Trailblazers of the Space Era, 1961-1965'' (University of Nebraska Press, 2007) p180</ref>

== 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 head an investigation commission and go to the site. Among other things, the commission found that many more people were present on the launch pad than should have been &mdash; most were supposed to be safely offsite in bunkers.{{Citation needed|date=March 2012}}

According to [[Sergei Khrushchev]], Brezhnev insisted that the commission punish no one, explaining that "The guilty have already been punished."
[[File:Митинг 24 октября, город Байконур.jpg|thumb|200px|An [[honor guard]] at the tomb for those 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?" Yangel answered in a trembling voice – "Walked away for a smoke. It's all my fault." Later he suffered a [[Myocardial infarction|heart attack]] and was off work for months.<ref>[http://n-t.ru/tp/it/ps.htm Первые шаги советской ракетной техники. Статьи. Наука И Техника] {{ru icon}}</ref>

After the committee presented its report, the R-16 program resumed in January 1961 with first successful flight in November. The delay to the R-16 spurred the USSR toward the development of more effective ICBMs and sparked Khrushchev's decision to install [[Intermediate-range ballistic missile|IRBM]]s 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|date=January 2012}}

A memorial to the victims of the test was erected in the first half of the 1960s in the Park of Baikonur and is still visited by [[Russian Federal Space Agency|RKA]] officials before any manned launch.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://podrobnosti.ua/projects/arch/2005/10/25/255645.html|script-title=ru:Неделинская катастрофа|last=Tsaplienko|first=Andriy|date=25 October 2005|publisher=ООО "Интерактивный Маркетинг"|language=Russian|accessdate=9 November 2011}}</ref>

==Official acknowledgment==
A news release stated that Nedelin had died "in a plane crash while on an undisclosed mission."<ref>[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,826738,00.html "Milestones"], ''TIME'' Magazine, November 7, 1960.</ref><ref>"Chief of Rockets Killed in Soviet; Moscow Reports Death of Nedelin in Plane Crash", ''New York Times'', October 26, 1960, p2</ref> 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.<ref>"Rocket Cited in Deaths; Italian Agency Says Blast Killed 3 Russian Experts", ''New York Times'', December 10, 1960, p6</ref> ''[[The Guardian]]'' reported on October 16, 1965, that captured spy [[Oleg Penkovsky]] had confirmed details of the missile accident,<ref>"1960 Soviet Rocket Disaster Reported", ''New York Times'', October 17, 1965, p18</ref> and exiled scientist [[Zhores Medvedev]] provided further details in 1976 in the British weekly magazine ''[[New Scientist]]''.<ref>"Exiled Soviet Scientist Says That an Explosion of Buried Atomic Wastes in the Urals in 1958 Killed Hundreds", ''New York Times'', November 7, 1976, p18</ref>  However, it was not until April 16, 1989, that the Soviet Union acknowledged the events, with a report appearing in the weekly newsmagazine ''[[Ogoniok]]''.<ref>[https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=7-UNAAAAIBAJ&sjid=_W0DAAAAIBAJ&pg=5489,5177373&dq=nedelin+1960&hl=en "Soviet article reports 1960 launch blast"], ''Pittsburgh Post-Gazette'', April 17, 1989, p3</ref>

==See also==
* [[Intelsat 708]], the 1990s launch of a satellite by China goes awry and results in the worst space launch disaster since Nedelin.
{{Portal|1960s}}

== 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. ISBN 0-471-14853-9
* Chertok, Boris. ''Missiles and People: Fili-Podlipki-Tyuratam''. [[Moscow]], Mashinostroyeniye Publishing House, 1996. (In Russian)
* Chertok, Boris. [http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4110/vol2.pdf  ''Rockets and People, Volume 2: Creating a Rocket Industry'', 2006]. Published by [[NASA]]. ISBN 0-16-076672-9
* Sheehan, Neil, ''A Fiery Peace in a Cold War'', [[Random House]], [[New York City|New York]], 2009, p 405.
* "Testing of rocket and space technology - the business of my life" Events and facts - [[Arkady Ostashev|A.I. Ostashev]], [[Korolyov, Moscow Oblast|Korolyov]], 2001.[http://cosmosravelin.narod.ru/r-space/bibliografia.html].
* "Baikonur. Korolev. Yangel." - M. I. Kuznetsk, [[Voronezh]]: IPF "Voronezh", 1997, ISBN 5-89981-117-X;

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

== External links ==
* [http://www.russianspaceweb.com/r16_disaster.html Nedelin Disaster on RussianSpaceWeb.com]
* [http://www.videocosmos.com/r16.shtm Video Cosmos]
* [http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/spacecraft/q0179.shtml Nedelin Disaster on aerospaceweb.org]
* [http://www.astronautix.com/articles/therophe.htm The Nedelin Catastrophe]&nbsp;&mdash; article from Air & Space Magazine
* [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7WQJfoEFgNU Video clip]
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqT90VmYgEU Day when not start missiles. Part one]
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvHfdDrenaA  Day when not start missiles. Part two]
*[http://www.leninsk.ru/gallery/displayimage.php?album=492&pos=2 Memorial]
* [http://www.mk.ru/incident/2015/10/29/katastrofa-na-baykonure-pochemu-pogibli-124-cheloveka-vo-glave-s-marshalom.html The newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets ] // The disaster at Baikonur {{ref-ru}}
* [http://soyuzveteranov.ru/?q=content/delegaciya-rossiyskogo-soyuza-veteranov-pochtila-pamyat-ispytateley-pogibshih-pri-ispolnenii The Russian Union Of Veterans] // Day of memory and grief.{{ref-ru}} 
* [http://www.baikonuradm.ru/index.php?mod=all/news&ID=4004 The official website of the city administration Baikonur] // Baikonur commemorated a test rocket and space technology.{{ref-ru}}
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[[Category:Space accidents and incidents in the Soviet Union]]
[[Category:Non-combat military accidents]]
[[Category:Space program of the Soviet Union]]
[[Category:Soviet coverups]]
[[Category:Space program fatalities|Nedelin Disaster (1960)]]
[[Category:1960 disasters]]
[[Category:1960 in the Soviet Union]]
[[Category:Filmed accidental deaths]]
[[Category:Baikonur Cosmodrome]]