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"  The workhorse of Russia&amp;#039;s commercial space operations crashed spectacularly on Tuesday, just seconds after lifting off from its launch base in grasslands of western Kazakhstan.  The nearly 700-ton Proton-M rocket blasted off exactly as scheduled at 8:38 am local time at Baikonur Cosmodrome carrying a trio of satellites for the GLONASS constellation, a Russian equivalent of the GPS navigation network. But moments after clearing the lightning towers of the launchpad, the heaviest rocket in the Russian space fleet began to gyrate and swing wildly left and right in front of a live camera broadcasting the launch around the world. The Proton then flew in an arc to an altitude of a few hundred meters with its engines firing at full thrust. The rocket plunged back to the ground, disintegrating into a giant fireball shortly before slamming into the steppe, just 32 seconds after leaving the launchpad. Fortunately, the rocket crashed in the unpopulated area, and the resulting mushroom cloud of toxic fumes dissipated before reaching nearby towns. According to both official reports and multiple eyewitness accounts, no one was hurt. Investigators now face the daunting task of determining the root cause of the failure and, more importantly, identifying underlining issues within the Russian space industry, which has been producing costly failures with frightening regularity. From the very preliminary information that has emerged from the crash, it seems that at least one out of six engines clustered on the first stage of Proton failed. During the launch, main engines are designed to swivel gently in their suspension system to steer the rocket along its curved flight path. However, telemetry from the doomed mission shows that a steering mechanism on one of the engines apparently moved it into an extreme angled position, pushing the rocket off its prescribed trajectory, according to Russian rocket industry sources. Upon detecting the problem, the flight-control computers probably commanded the remaining five engines to move to counteract the incorrect thrust. But the healthy engines could not cope with the chaotic forces of this wild ride. As aerodynamic loads on the rocket grew, it disintegrated, starting with the most delicate upper payload section.      The catastrophic situation on board the rocket would have produced an emergency command to cut off propellant supply to the engines as early as 17 seconds after liftoff. But that signal was blocked for the first 42 seconds of the mission. The reason goes back all the way to the moon race, when a giant Soviet N1 rocket turned off its engines moments after its liftoff and exploded right on the launchpad, destroying it. As a result, the Proton engines kept firing to carry the doomed vehicle as far as possible from its precious launchpad, even when its suicidal trajectory had already turned downward. Although Proton had suffered a string of failures in recent years, none had gotten so much publicity. Today&amp;#039;s catastrophe happened so early in the flight that many space observers watched it live, and thousands of others joined in later in the morning. Clearly, any attempts to remove the videos from government-controlled websites had no effect on their proliferation. And while investigators sort out this crash, the damage has already been done to the Russian space program in general and to the nation&amp;#039;s commercial launch operations, with the failure disrupting a busy launch schedule and further undermining the already shaky reputation of the troubled industry.  Proton failed in two launches of 11 in 2012, even though one of three satellites left stranded in the wrong orbit was eventually brought to its operational altitude. One of nine Proton missions failed in 2011, and one out of 12 launches failed in 2010. Ironically, the botched mission of 2010 also carried a trio of satellites for the GLONASS navigation network, which the Russian government declared a program of the national importance. Before the latest crash, Proton was scheduled to launch at least four commercial satellites for foreign customers and to deliver payloads for the Russian Ministry of Defense and the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, during the remaining six months of 2013. Over the past several years, the Kremlin has made many loud pronouncements about fixing the problems of the nation&amp;#039;s space program and taking personal responsibility for its failures. Yet after pouring millions of dollars into the rocket industry and appointing loyal military officers to the top positions at Roscosmos, the Russian space vehicles continued crashing to the ground during launches or failing in orbit far short of their projected life span. Even worse, a number of major space projects remain years, if not decades, behind schedule. Anatoly Zak is an editor of RussianSpaceWeb.com and the author of Russia in Space: The Past Explained, The Future Explored, to be released by Apogee Books later this month. 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<http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/rockets/a9113/inside-russias-spectacular-rocket-disintegration-15653112/>