A Soyuz-U-PVB carried the Yantar-4K1 military surveillance satellite from Plesetsk, but the payload fairing broke apart about 50 seconds after liftoff, destroying the vehicle. The failure was traced to a manufacturing defect shared with an earlier Yantar fairing loss weeks prior.
- Outcome
- Failure
- Orbit
- LEO
- Low Earth orbit
- Payload to orbit
- Did not reach orbit
- Flight
- 40th
- of 70 Soyuz-U-PVB flights
- Date and time
- 20 June 1996, 18:44 UTC
- Rocket
- Soyuz-U-PVB
- Builder
- Progress RSC
- Launch site
- 16/2, Plesetsk Cosmodrome, Russian Federation
- Payload
- Government/Top Secret
- Launches in 1996
- 40th of 77