Soyuz Problems Continue

[Pangloss]

As you may have heard in the news, the Soyuz craft that returned to Earth the other day ran into difficulties. Unfortunately, news reporters have about as much interest in technical facts these days as your average creationist, so it's been hard to nail down exactly what happened. (Here's an amusing example of a reporter dazzled by the news of flames seen by the astronaut outside the window during re-enty -- gee whiz!)

 

Fortunately James Oberg posted a real analysis this afternoon over at MSNBC, so I thought I'd pass it along.

 

The hard landing likely was the result of a failure in the Soyuz craft's autopilot, which uses thrusters to keep the descent on a smooth course. When the autopilot fails, the craft goes into a stable, constant roll — without the usual aerodynamic "lift." As a result, it lands far short of the original aim point after a much more severe air braking phase.

 

Why didn't ground controllers know that the vehicle had switched from a gentler "guided descent" to a steeper "ballistic descent"? Russian space agency chief Anatoly Perminov blamed the crew for not reporting in by radio, but this accusation ignored the existence of radio beacons on the Soyuz, as well as tracking by ground-based radar. Those systems all apparently failed.

 

Apparently the root of the problem is considered to be a rapid increase in the production rate of Soyuz capsules as we approach the period in which we will not have any shuttles flying, and an increase in the number of permanent personnel they are planning to keep on the station.

 

The root cause of the “rush” is not hard to imagine. With the space station slated to begin operating with a permanent six-person crew a year from now, the Russians have had to double their production rate of Soyuz spacecraft. Since it takes about two and a half years to fabricate one spacecraft, the production line ramped up early in 2007, just as the finishing touches were being made on the Soyuz that experienced the emergency landing last fall.

 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24243569/

[Realitycheck]

Awesome technology.

 

There was no voice communication from the Soyuz crew until a half-hour after landing, when Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko managed to unhook himself from his upside-down seat in the side-leaning spacecraft and clamber outside to use a satellite phone.

 

Brilliant thinking under pressure

 

Meanwhile, confusion within Mission Control reached the point where some operator just decided to guess that the landing had been safe — and flashed a graphic saying so. Many observers misinterpreted this as an indication that data had been received confirming a landing, 20 minutes later than planned. In reality, there were no reports until later.

[Pangloss]

The Russians released a report today saying that the capsule entered hatch-first instead of heatshield-first, and almost burned up in the atmosphere. The incorrect angle of entry caused the antennae to burn off preventing report of the damage back to mission control.

 

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/2008-04-22-soyuz-danger_N.htm

 

Considering that the capsule had the first Korean astronaut on board, that would have been quite the disaster for the international space program.

[insane_alien]

kudos to the russians for building a sturdy enough craft that i can come in backwards ans still survive. pretty damn impressive if you ask me.

[CDarwin]

That's the Russian way. Make a product that might or might not fail catastrophically, but sturdy enough so that maybe no one will die.

[Pangloss]

Sturdy enough to survive re-entry, yes. Crushing or burning its occupants on the way down, however, is an apparently open question. The Russians do get a lot of credit, I agree, but they may need to step up their quality control.