LYTKARINO, Moscow region. Feb 26 (Interfax-AVN) - Ukraine is responsible for the wreck of the Sea Launch Zenit rocket, Military Industrial Commission First Deputy Chairman Ivan Kharchenko told reporters on Tuesday.
"Dmitry Olegovich Rogozin has made the report (to Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev). The conclusion is that defects in Ukrainian-made units caused the wreck. There are no claims to Russian hardware," Kharchenko said.
The report on the causes of the Zenit accident was submitted to the premier the week before last, on February 15, he said.
The Zenit rocket, carrying an Intelsat-27 telecom satellite, crashed during launch on February 1, 2013. It splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, several kilometers away from the launch site.
Military-Industrial Commission Deputy Chairman Oleg Bochkarev said on February 21 that the Russian commission had finalized the inquiry into the Zenit accident. "The report has been made: the investigation is over and the culprits will be punished," he said.
The Sea Launch Consortium established in 1995 launches Zenit-3SL rockets. The company reorganization ended in 2010. Sea Launch AG is headquartered in Bern, Switzerland.
Zenit-3SL is a modification of the Zenit-2 two-stage rocket, a product of the Ukrainian Yuzhnoye Design Bureau. The Russian Energia Corporation is the maker of the DM-SL upper stage.
The abortive launch was the first Sea Launch mission of the year. The consortium had three successful launches in 2012. In all, it launched 35 Zenit-3SL rockets from the mobile platform in the Pacific, including one partially successful and two failed.