KYIV. March 13 (Interfax-AVN) - The failure of the RD171M first stage engine caused the Zenit-3SL carrier launched on January 30 as a part of the Sea Launch program to crash, a press release of the information department at the Dnipropetrovsk-based Yuzhnoye designing bureau obtained by Interfax on Tuesday says.
The intergovernmental commission probing the crash established that the engine failure occurred as a result of the penetration of a foreign metal object into engine's pump, it says.
The abortive launch of the Zenit-3SL destroyed the payload, the Dutch multifunctional telecom satellite NSS-8 belonging to NewSkies. The rocket fell into the Pacific in the first seconds of its flight, and 550 tonnes of fuel spilled over the platform.