Further Details From Soyuz Mishap

fyc brings us some information from Universe Today about what happened to Soyuz TMA-11 when it re-entered the atmosphere late last week. Reports indicate that a failure of explosive bolts to separate the Soyuz modules delayed the re-entry and oriented the capsule so the hatch was taking most of the heat, rather than the heat shields. CNN reports that the crew was in 'severe danger.' They experienced forces of up to 8.2 gravities. NASA officials have voiced their approval of how Russia handled the crisis. They expect to rely heavily on Soyuz spacecraft once the shuttles are retired in 2010.

Similar to Soyuz 5? Upsidedown reentry.

[node159]

Sounds very similar to the Soyuz 5 rentry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_5), would have been quite an ordeal. For more 'interesting' reentries have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_space_disasters [wikipedia.org]

Re:Safe even upside down?

[khallow]

The frame of the Soyuz is made of titanium. Someone had linked to a list of Soyuz accidents before, and I recall that the titanium shell has enabled the vehicle to survive a flawed reentry before (I think it might have been a hole burned in the heatshield or another skewed reentry).

Re:We won't always be so lucky

[sokoban]

And everyone with a brain will point out that more americans have died in american shuttle mishaps than have died in russian shuttle mishaps.

And everyone with a brain will point out that there have been no manned russian shuttle flights.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buran_(spacecraft)

Re:GAO Report

[BZWingZero]

No they don't. At least not in anywhere near a usable state. One (that actually flew in space once in 1988) is crushed under a building, another is on its way to a museum in Australia. And another is a simulator ride in Moscow. Helping SpaceX finish their Falcon 9/Dragon capsule launch system would be easier and more cost effective.

Re:Safe even upside down?

[LWATCDR]

Titanium is good but not that good.
Odds are that the Soyuz righted it's self at some point. Also I am not sure what hatch took the heat. Does the Soyuz have a side hatch of just the top hatch?
If it was the top hatch they are very lucky that the chute system didn't fail from the heat.

Anonymous Coward

[Anonymous Coward]

The "hatch first" story is already in doubt, latest info says separation of the entry module was delayed, it entered sideways and computer thus went to ballistic mode after a certain time and was in said mode when it finally separated.

I just read a forum where knowledgeable people translate from a reliable known guy on a russian forum. Not much official has yet been revealed.

Details here [nasaspaceflight.com]

Re:You are being held by a force of two gravities!

[AJWM]

Don't know where you got that figure from.

Modern fighter aircraft are software-limited to 9G maneuvers, with the crew in G-suits and trained for it. (The hardware can probably take higher). The Gemini launches on converted Titan-II missiles routinely hit about 8G during the ascent (Shuttle does 3G).

Then-Captain John Stapp in his rocket sled experiments in the late 1940s/early 1950s routinely experienced 18G in the "eyeballs in" position, and 30G in "eyeballs out" deceleration as the sled stopped. The peak force he survived was around 45G. (Black-eyed, bloodshot, bruised, with the occasional cracked rib and generally beat up, but survived.)

Re:Russian hardware

[AsnFkr]

NASA's approach of building craft out of gold foil and tissue paper in clean rooms, trying to turn every last ounce of the payload into instrumentation is misguided.

I agree with what you said about the sillyness that is the Space Shuttle "reusable" program, but you mention gold foil and tissue paper, which I can assume was a jab at Apollo's LM. In that case the weight of the spacecraft was VERY VERY specific, and the "gold foil" was the best way to control the heat from the thrusters of the craft without adding a ton of extra weight and was actually a pretty slick way about it. Sometimes lightweight spacecraft with instrumentation on every inch is a good thing. That said, fuck the shuttle.

Re:GAO Report

[Anonymous Coward]

The ISS is routinely reboosted by visiting Soyuz, Progress and now European ATVs as well as the Shuttle. The Zarya "Tug" which was the first component launched can also reboost the station (it's why Progress and ATV's carry extra fuel to be offloaded to the ISS).

They have visiting craft like Shuttles and Progresses use their extra onboard fuel for reboosts to preserve the ISS's onboard fuel for emergencies.

Re:Russian hardware

[LWATCDR]

Well they didn't reenter without a heat shield. It looks like the hit sideways until the propulsion section broke away and then righted themselves. At least that is what it looks like from the pictures I have seen.
Your comments about Russian aerospace hardware is at best optimistic and based more in folk lore than anything.
A lot of Russian jet aircraft are simple but pretty fragile. US aircraft tend to be pretty complex but very rugged. The Mig-21 was made of tissue paper compared to the F-4, F-105, A-6 and or F-100.
Even the F-15 has huge kill ratio VS every Migs.
There was at least one F-15 that had a mid-air and lost a wing! That plane made it home!
Yea US aircraft tend to require more man hours and you have to have more skills and tool than your average oil change tech but they tend to be very rugged and reliable.

Re:GAO Report

[gharris]

Yes. It needs periodic 'lifting' to boost it back into the proper orbit. In fact, the new ESA ATV just did that today according to space.com (European Cargo Ship Boosts Space Station's Orbit [space.com]):

Europe's first Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) cargo supply ship has successfully raised the International Space Station into a higher orbit...

additionally:

Russia's unmanned Progress supply vessels are also is capable of boosting the station's orbit, as are the U.S. space shuttles of NASA.

It is in good hands in that regard.

--Glenn

Re:GAO Report

[osu-neko]

Mod up parent! These are serious concerns, should not be swept under the rug. As much as I dislike the design of the Shuttle, it's the only one capable of carrying that sort of heavy payload to the ISS' orbit (LEO).

Comparison of heavy lift launch systems [wikipedia.org]

Is Wikipedia on crack again, or are there no less than four other currently operational launch systems with nearly identical payload capacity to the shuttle?

Re:We won't always be so lucky

[DerekLyons]

It will be interesting to see public outcry when one of the Russian craft craters with Americans onboard. This will inevitably happen, even if the Soyuz is safer than anything America has (which it probably is).

The safety differences between Soyuz and Shuttle are statistically insignificant. Unless you engage in shady practices like not counting Soyuz-1 and Soyuz-10 "because they were a long time ago", etc... By that that metric one should be able to discard Challenger as well - at which point Shuttle's safety is still equal to or better than any other booster excepting only Soyuz. Even so, the difference is still statistically insignificant because neither vehicle has a enough flights to create valid statistics.
 
Myself, I'm not surprised at the latest Soyuz incident. Soyuz has a long history of incidents and near accidents.

Re:GAO Report

[Martin Blank]

You're misreading it. The shuttle has the highest launch capacity of any currently operational heavy lifter. There are others (Angara A5, Ares V, Falcon 9 Heavy, Long March 5) on the books, but a NASA payload is unlikely to ever launch on a Long March rocket. The remaining lifters on the list (Energia, N1, and the Saturn line) are retired; the two Soviet lifters had a dismal record of one success in six launches.

The closest operational heavy lift system is the Delta IV Heavy coming in at only 1450kg less mass to LEO than the shuttle's max payload, and which has one successful and one partially successful launch on its record. However, the Delta line is a good one, and none of the eight Delta IV launch vehicles (including three Medium and three Medium+ launches) have been lost.

Re:Russian hardware

[DerekLyons]

Give me Russian-built aerospace hardware any day. Their stuff is built brick-shithouse tough. Re-entry without the heatshield?

They didn't re-enter without the heatshield. They started re-entry improperly oriented and properly oriented the craft at virtually the last possible instant. That isn't tough, that's damn lucky.
 
 

How much does a Soyuz laucnh cost compared to a shuttle launch?

Soyuz is much cheaper than a Shuttle per launch. But considering it takes something like four Soyuz launches and four Progress launches to incompletely replace a single Shuttle mission to ISS, it shouldn't be surprising that it is cheaper - lower capability almost always implies lower costs. I say 'incompletely' because Soyuz/Progress cannot deliver station modules, cannot deliver external cargo, cannot deliver ISS racks, cannot return hardware... etc.. etc... All of which the Shuttle can do. (Not to mention that the CBM hatches available to Shuttle carried cargo containers are nearly four times as big as the APAS hatches used the Soyuz/Progress.)
 
 

the logical thing would seem to be to build simple, cheap, super-tough craft and just launch dozens of them rather than investing heavily in individual craft.

If only cheap and super-tough weren't mutually incompatible.
 
 

When we do launch more than one vehicle, it is months apart as in the case of the Mars rovers. Doesn't make much sense.

It makes perfect sense - because assembling and launching them in serial (as opposed to parallel) means you can apply lessons learned from assembling the first to assembling the second. You can 'promote' and 'demoted' hardware from one vehicle to the next to ease schedule pressure. Etc... Etc... Launching them at the same time means assembling them at the same time - and for one-off (or severely limited production) vehicles that means more expensive, more likely to fail, more likely to slip schedule, etc... etc... Without providing an iota more science return.

Re:Russian hardware

[evanbd]

Indeed. Here's one of the better writeups [f-16.net].

IAF F-15 Mishap

[clbyjack81]

There was at least one F-15 that had a mid-air and lost a wing! That plane made it home!

The incident to which you refer was a mid-air collision in an Israeli Air Force training flight. Here is a link [youtube.com] to the History Channel interview with the pilot. After McDonnell Douglas analyzed the accident, they concluded that the F-15's lifting body design allowed it to remain airborne on one wing, given enough speed.

Gigantic kudos to the pilot who brought that plane home safely! After a full investigation into the accident, a new wing was fitted, and the fighter returned to service.

How's that for American aircraft ruggedness! (Well, in the F-15's case anyway)

Re:Russian hardware

[Shakrai]

Whether it's plane, subs, rockets etc, you can count on the Russians to come up with expensive shit which simply doesn't work reliably

That's not entirely fair. They've had their fair share of avoidable disasters due to flawed designs (*cough* Chernobyl *cough*) but they've also built some really impressive shit.

The T-34 [wikipedia.org] was arguably the best tank of WW2. The R-36 (SS-18) [wikipedia.org] ICBM was superior to any American missile (including the vaunted Peacekeeper) in many areas -- survivability, throw-weight, etc, etc. The R-73 (AA-11) [wikipedia.org] air-to-air missile was at least a generation ahead of the equivalent NATO weapon (AIM-9L or AIM-9M) when it first came out.

We've generally beaten them in the electronics game (more success at miniaturization, more powerful computers, better software engineers), which probably makes our weapons/sensors more effective overall but it's a huge mistake to dismiss or underestimate Russian technology.

Re:GAO Report

[ejecta]

Interesting part is that Daimler took care of haulage free of charge so they could use the stunt as an advertisement for their 'new' heavy haulage truck the Actros SLT.

They put out a nice press release with cuddly photos of the action: http://jalopnik.com/383099/daimler-tugs-soviet-buran-spaceship-self [jalopnik.com]

Re:You are being held by a force of two gravities!

[budgenator]

pilots tend to black-out or grey-out around 9 or 10 Gs when flying aircraft, spacecraft pilots can go a bit higher because of more favorable seating positions.

Re:GAO Report

[tpheiska]

There are others (Angara A5, Ares V, Falcon 9 Heavy, Long March 5) on the books, but a NASA payload is unlikely to ever launch on a Long March rocket. The remaining lifters on the list (Energia, N1, and the Saturn line) are retired; the two Soviet lifters had a dismal record of one success in six launches.

What about Ariane 5? The ECA version lifts 21000 kg to LEO, which 3400 kg less than STS but I would still consider it a viable heavy lifter. It has even been used to take Da Vinci to the ISS succesfully.

Re:Don't hit me...

[arivanov]

Both.

It is the repeat of the Leonov reentry of Voshod from around 40 years back.

They are lucky to have landed only 300 miles off. Leonov's crew landed 1000 miless off in the middle of a Russian forest without any weapons and with minimal survival gear (that incident is what has made small arms and survival kits standard equipment on all russian capsules).