A Space & astronomy forum. SpaceBanter.com

Go Back   Home » SpaceBanter.com forum » Space Science » Policy
Site Map Home Authors List Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read Web Partners

Soyuz Rocket Launch Failure Forces Emergency Landing of Soyuz!



 
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old October 11th 18, 11:23 AM posted to sci.space.policy
Jeff Findley[_6_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,307
Default Soyuz Rocket Launch Failure Forces Emergency Landing of Soyuz!


Soyuz Rocket Launch Failure Forces Emergency Landing for US-Russian
Space Station Crew
By Meghan Bartels, Space.com Senior Writer | October 11, 2018 05:11am ET
https://www.space.com/42097-soyuz-ro...expedition-57-
crew.html

Stupid Russian reliability finally bit us in the ass. Luckily it sounds
like the crew survived the ballistic reentry and landing after the upper
stage failed to start. On Facebook someone said reentry G's were 6
point something. High, but survivable.

This comes on the heels of the hole, causing air loss, that was
discovered in the orbital module of one of the Soyuz capsules docked to
ISS.

We need to fly commercial crew test flights a.s.a.p. At this point it's
reportedly NASA "paperwork" that's delaying the program!

Jeff
--
All opinions posted by me on Usenet News are mine, and mine alone.
These posts do not reflect the opinions of my family, friends,
employer, or any organization that I am a member of.
  #2  
Old October 11th 18, 12:04 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Fred J. McCall[_3_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 10,018
Default Soyuz Rocket Launch Failure Forces Emergency Landing of Soyuz!

Jeff Findley wrote on Thu, 11 Oct 2018
06:23:40 -0400:


Soyuz Rocket Launch Failure Forces Emergency Landing for US-Russian
Space Station Crew
By Meghan Bartels, Space.com Senior Writer | October 11, 2018 05:11am ET
https://www.space.com/42097-soyuz-ro...expedition-57-
crew.html

Stupid Russian reliability finally bit us in the ass. Luckily it sounds
like the crew survived the ballistic reentry and landing after the upper
stage failed to start. On Facebook someone said reentry G's were 6
point something. High, but survivable.


6g? Hell, that's not that much worse than the 'jolt' on a normal
Soyuz landing.


This comes on the heels of the hole, causing air loss, that was
discovered in the orbital module of one of the Soyuz capsules docked to
ISS.

We need to fly commercial crew test flights a.s.a.p. At this point it's
reportedly NASA "paperwork" that's delaying the program!


Right now I think they're talking about next June for Crew Dragon and
a couple months after that for Boeing.


--
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable
man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore,
all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
--George Bernard Shaw
  #3  
Old October 11th 18, 02:19 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Greg \(Strider\) Moore
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 752
Default Soyuz Rocket Launch Failure Forces Emergency Landing of Soyuz!

"Jeff Findley" wrote in message
...


Soyuz Rocket Launch Failure Forces Emergency Landing for US-Russian
Space Station Crew
By Meghan Bartels, Space.com Senior Writer | October 11, 2018 05:11am ET
https://www.space.com/42097-soyuz-ro...expedition-57-
crew.html

Stupid Russian reliability finally bit us in the ass. Luckily it sounds
like the crew survived the ballistic reentry and landing after the upper
stage failed to start. On Facebook someone said reentry G's were 6
point something. High, but survivable.

This comes on the heels of the hole, causing air loss, that was
discovered in the orbital module of one of the Soyuz capsules docked to
ISS.

We need to fly commercial crew test flights a.s.a.p. At this point it's
reportedly NASA "paperwork" that's delaying the program!

Jeff


I've said for years, give me a comfortable lawn chair, some SCUBA equipment
and some snacks and I'd fly Cargo Dragon tomorrow.

But yeah, I can see this very quickly moving up the launches of Dragon 2
(and perhaps CST-100, but I suspect they're more constrained by available
boosters.0



--
Greg D. Moore http://greenmountainsoftware.wordpress.com/
CEO QuiCR: Quick, Crowdsourced Responses. http://www.quicr.net
IT Disaster Response -
https://www.amazon.com/Disaster-Resp...dp/1484221834/

  #4  
Old October 11th 18, 06:21 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Greg \(Strider\) Moore
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 752
Default Soyuz Rocket Launch Failure Forces Emergency Landing of Soyuz!

"JF Mezei" wrote in message ...

Watching the NASA press conference:

Rocket was at roughly 50km altitude.
Just after the boosters separated normally, the "situation" was found
and abort declared.

Took about 35 minutes for capsule to fall down, capsule would have spun
some and experienced up to 6g.


Question from media: Does NASA still pay for flight if the Russians
don't deliver astronauts? "I am not sure" was the answer :-) Apparently
the contracts as milestones, so I would venture that the time spent to
train the crews is still paid.


The Soyuz which was to be replaced has a "Best Before" date of Jan 4th,
and there were questions of decrewing the station.

Crew currently at 5. I recall, perhaps erroneously that post Columbia,
they shrunk it down to 2 to insufficient cargo capacity. In the current
station config, could 2 keep the station alive or would they need 3 ?
(cargo no lonegr an issue).


If I'm reading right, the actual crew right now is 3. 3 returned on the 4th
on MS-08.
This flight would have brought the crew up to 5.


So in January, wouldn't the crew drop to 3 with 2 returning? When is
the other soyuz's "Best before" date?



I believe right now the only Soyuz at the Station is Soyuz MS-08.



The NASA official: there is a hard requirement for crews to be on board
the ISS to accept the first commercial crew test flight. When pressed
on that issue, NASA guy seemed to want to leave the door open for a
review of this requirement if things come to that.



I was discussing options elsewhere and part of it depends on a few factors:
1) How long before the Russians fly again. If it's before January, no real
issues. And knowing the Russians, they'll fly before January, even if it's
an all Russian crew.
2) If they don't, in theory, SpX-DM1 is scheduled to fly in January. One
possibility is to fly this as is, but keep it on orbit and de-orbit the
Soyuz. I doubt NASA would want to trust this as a lifeboat/return craft, but
I think it's worth considering the risk.
3) Even if the Russians won't fly a crewed flight before January, they could
fly an uncrewed Soyuz, dock it and replace Soyuz MS-08.
4) I suspect we're going to see a bunch of paperwork suddenly flying that
will give an option of moving up the Dragon v2 flights.

I don't think CST-100 will change much because I don't think ULA has the
boosters available to make much of a difference.

This is a way SpaceX really shows what frequent, cheap launch can do. When
you've got a cadence of 15-20 flights a year, it's pretty easy to move stuff
around.




Right after booster separation, booster emergency light turned on, and
the ejection system fired automatically.


Search and rescue were already on the ground at the time the capsule
reached the ground.


--
Greg D. Moore http://greenmountainsoftware.wordpress.com/
CEO QuiCR: Quick, Crowdsourced Responses. http://www.quicr.net
IT Disaster Response -
https://www.amazon.com/Disaster-Resp...dp/1484221834/

  #5  
Old October 12th 18, 07:50 AM posted to sci.space.policy
Fred J. McCall[_3_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 10,018
Default Soyuz Rocket Launch Failure Forces Emergency Landing of Soyuz!

JF Mezei wrote on Thu, 11 Oct 2018
12:52:07 -0400:


Crew currently at 5. I recall, perhaps erroneously that post Columbia,
they shrunk it down to 2 to insufficient cargo capacity. In the current
station config, could 2 keep the station alive or would they need 3 ?
(cargo no lonegr an issue).


Crew is, so far as I can determine, currently at three, not five. It
was up at six prior to the first week of October, when three returned.


So in January, wouldn't the crew drop to 3 with 2 returning? When is
the other soyuz's "Best before" date?


There is no 'other Soyuz'. It returned a week or so ago. The crew
has already dropped to three. Those three were supposed to return in
December. There is another Soyuz launch scheduled for December 20
with three more crew. That would have led to a crew of five if the
last launch hadn't failed.


Right after booster separation, booster emergency light turned on, and
the ejection system fired automatically.


There is no 'ejection system'.


--
"Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the
truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong."
-- Thomas Jefferson
  #6  
Old October 12th 18, 08:01 AM posted to sci.space.policy
Fred J. McCall[_3_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 10,018
Default Soyuz Rocket Launch Failure Forces Emergency Landing of Soyuz!

JF Mezei wrote on Thu, 11 Oct 2018
14:54:59 -0400:


What are the odds of having a new Soyuz ready by then? Thankfully there
is half of october, november and december for russians to accelate
finishing a Soyuz capsule and rocket.


Having hardware 'ready' isn't an issue. There is a launch scheduled
for December. The issue is whether or not the investigation has
cleared things for launch.


Is there a precedent for sending an empty Soyuz to the ISS? Would
docking have to be via Toru or still via Kurs? If via Kurs, controled by
ground or ISS ?


This is one of the options. If the system hasn't been cleared for
humans, they could send up the scheduled December launch empty and
extend the three people currently on ISS.


Unless it can fly before January 4th, it may force the remaining crew to
return to earth on the Soyuz. Unless some paperwork is signed to allow
extension of "Best before" date on the Soyuz.


There will be hardware ready in December. The question is whether it
is cleared for people.


With regards to the crewed Dragon flights. Are the Falcon stages
"special" for crewed flights, or are they stock Block 5 ?


Stock.


In a crewed configuration, wouldn't the capsule have data a data
connection to command/control of Stage 1/Stage 2 to not only get health
of stage, bit also be able to comand it (such as aborting)? Such data
paths wouldn't exist for cargo flights, right ?


There's no difference between Crewed Dragon and a cargo Dragon V2.


This is a way SpaceX really shows what frequent, cheap launch can do. When
you've got a cadence of 15-20 flights a year, it's pretty easy to move stuff
around.


Isn't the critical path the Dragon vehicle itself and not the rocket? It
is the first crewed Dragon, so at this point, "frequent" can't be
applied to it.


The barrier for Boeing is having a booster. That's not a barrier for
SpaceX.


I know this may sound ludicrous, but how long would it take to fit a
Soyuz Capsule on top of a Falcon9 stage 1 or Stage and 2 ? Is this even
feasable or would weight/size make it a show stopper ?


It's a lot of work and it doesn't buy you anything.


--
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable
man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore,
all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
--George Bernard Shaw
  #7  
Old October 12th 18, 11:12 AM posted to sci.space.policy
Jeff Findley[_6_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,307
Default Soyuz Rocket Launch Failure Forces Emergency Landing of Soyuz!

In article ,
says...

Soyuz Rocket Launch Failure Forces Emergency Landing for US-Russian
Space Station Crew
By Meghan Bartels, Space.com Senior Writer | October 11, 2018 05:11am ET
https://www.space.com/42097-soyuz-ro...expedition-57-
crew.html

Stupid Russian reliability finally bit us in the ass. Luckily it sounds
like the crew survived the ballistic reentry and landing after the upper
stage failed to start. On Facebook someone said reentry G's were 6
point something. High, but survivable.

This comes on the heels of the hole, causing air loss, that was
discovered in the orbital module of one of the Soyuz capsules docked to
ISS.

We need to fly commercial crew test flights a.s.a.p. At this point it's
reportedly NASA "paperwork" that's delaying the program!


I forgot to add, over the life of the ISS program, the Russians have had
three different Progress resupply vessels fail to make it to ISS. The
last Progress failure was an actual launch vehicle failure. But, the
Russians were quick to point out that for crewed launches they use a
different, safer, version of the Soyuz launch vehicle.

Unfortunately, a different design doesn't protect you from things like
shoddy workmanship from underpaid workers or from shoddy suppliers.

Jeff
--
All opinions posted by me on Usenet News are mine, and mine alone.
These posts do not reflect the opinions of my family, friends,
employer, or any organization that I am a member of.
  #9  
Old October 12th 18, 11:55 AM posted to sci.space.policy
Jeff Findley[_6_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,307
Default Soyuz Rocket Launch Failure Forces Emergency Landing of Soyuz!

In article ,
says...

On 2018-10-11 13:21, Greg (Strider) Moore wrote:

If I'm reading right, the actual crew right now is 3. 3 returned on the 4th
on MS-08.
This flight would have brought the crew up to 5.


Thanks. I was use dto thinking that a Soyuz would bring up new crew
before old one went down. If they went down before new one came up, that
would explain the risk of decrewing the station in January.


Since Soyuz has an on orbit lifetime of something like 200 days, it
really doesn't matter much if you launch the new one before the old one
departs. This is because the old one is already near the end of its
lifetime.

1) How long before the Russians fly again. If it's before January, no real
issues. And knowing the Russians, they'll fly before January, even if it's
an all Russian crew.


What are the odds of having a new Soyuz ready by then? Thankfully there
is half of october, november and december for russians to accelate
finishing a Soyuz capsule and rocket.


There is already going to be a Soyuz capsule ready. The one to replace
the other Soyuz (since a crew of 5 or 6 already requires more than one
Soyuz at ISS).

Is there a precedent for sending an empty Soyuz to the ISS? Would
docking have to be via Toru or still via Kurs? If via Kurs, controled by
ground or ISS ?


Yes, Russia has done this in the past with previous space stations. You
launch the new Soyuz empty and have it dock with ISS just like Progress
does.

Is it fair to assume that the stage 1/2 would have ballistically fallen
not too far from where the capsule fell or would there be a huge
distance between the 2 landings ?


Likely a fairly large distance due to the abort system firing its
thrusters. There has been some debate as to whether the abort tower was
still there or not (it's jettisoned once the stack is out of the
atmosphere). But even if the abort tower was gone, thrusters on the
spacecraft itself would have been used for the abort. So the
trajectories would not have been exactly the same. The idea is to get
*away* from the failing bits of launch vehicle during an abort.

2) If they don't, in theory, SpX-DM1 is scheduled to fly in January.

One
possibility is to fly this as is, but keep it on orbit and de-orbit the
Soyuz. I doubt NASA would want to trust this as a lifeboat/return craft, but
I think it's worth considering the risk.


Unless it can fly before January 4th, it may force the remaining crew to
return to earth on the Soyuz. Unless some paperwork is signed to allow
extension of "Best before" date on the Soyuz.


Agreed.

With regards to the crewed Dragon flights. Are the Falcon stages
"special" for crewed flights, or are they stock Block 5 ?


Standard Block 5 but I'm not sure how many flights have happened so far
with the new COPV helium tank design. NASA wanted five flights with the
new COPV helium tank design before they would "certify" it for crewed
flights.

In a crewed configuration, wouldn't the capsule have data a data
connection to command/control of Stage 1/Stage 2 to not only get health
of stage, bit also be able to comand it (such as aborting)? Such data
paths wouldn't exist for cargo flights, right ?


There is a connection between the two so that the automated abort system
on the capsule can be triggered.

This is a way SpaceX really shows what frequent, cheap launch can

do. When
you've got a cadence of 15-20 flights a year, it's pretty easy to move stuff
around.


Isn't the critical path the Dragon vehicle itself and not the rocket? It
is the first crewed Dragon, so at this point, "frequent" can't be
applied to it.


NASA has already said that the vehicles for the commercial crew test
flights are not the "long pole in the tent". At this point the
certification "paperwork" is what will take the most time.

This puts us squarely in the position many of us feared. NASA is
dragging its feet on the certification part while continuing to fly on
Soyuz which is clearly not as safe as one would hope. Russia's track
record over the last 10 to 20 years has not been stellar. Until now
they kept saying the version of the Soyuz launch vehicle used for crew
was safer than the other designs. Clearly that is b.s. if, for example,
it's not put together properly by an underpaid worker or a corrupt
supplier provides bad parts.

That's a problem with all expendables. The first flight is both that
copy of the vehicle's first test flight and its last operational flight.
Sounds like Shimmer. It's a floor wax *and* a dessert topping!

I know this may sound ludicrous, but how long would it take to fit a
Soyuz Capsule on top of a Falcon9 stage 1 or Stage and 2 ? Is this even
feasable or would weight/size make it a show stopper ?


Too effing long to matter. Besides structural issues, Soyuz isn't
designed to be attached to the Falcon 9 so that its automated abort
system could be triggered. Just designing, building, and testing an
interface for that would take a lot of time.

It would be safer (for the astronauts) to simply de-crew ISS for a
period of time until Russia can send up a crew on a Soyuz, then the
commercial crew testing can continue (NASA has said a crew has to be on
board ISS for the uncrewed commercial crew tests).

Besides, we all know how quickly Russia resumes flights after
"incidents" like this. They're very quick to find what they think is
the *one* cause, correct it, and start flying again. They will ignore
all other "distractions" in the interest of time.

NASA, on the other hand, identifies all possible issues with the
spacecraft and/or vehicle and fixes all of them before they fly again.
This tends to find *many* lingering issues that should have been fixed
in the past but never were. Just look at what they did after Apollo 1,
Challenger, and Columbia.

One of these approaches to safety isn't like the other.

Also, different topic: in a Soyuz abort scenario, in the initial

moments
of abort rockets firing, would both the capsule and orbital module be
extracted from the rocket together ?


Yes.

At what point would the orbital
module detach ? (I assume the escape engines are on the orbital module
or are they on the capsule?


The escape tower has escape rockets. The equipment module and the
descent module also have attitude control thrusters. I don't believe
the orbital module has any.

You could surely find pictures on the Internet showing the different
Soyuz capsule abort sequences. Google it.


I have one final thought. Russia is the only country on the planet
still launching people on top of a launch vehicle which is *directly*
derived from an ICBM. Those lower stages on the Soyuz launch vehicle,
which appear to have failed to separate cleanly on this launch, are
pretty much the same as the first ICBM from the USSR.

It's *not* a good idea to design orbital launch vehicles using the same
design philosophies as are used to design ICBMs. Things like
pyrotechnics for stage separations are fine on an ICBM, but aren't
necessarily the best thing to use on an orbital launch vehicle. For
example, Falcon 9 was deliberately designed to use no pyrotechnics for
its separation events.

Jeff
--
All opinions posted by me on Usenet News are mine, and mine alone.
These posts do not reflect the opinions of my family, friends,
employer, or any organization that I am a member of.
  #10  
Old October 12th 18, 08:18 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Fred J. McCall[_3_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 10,018
Default Soyuz Rocket Launch Failure Forces Emergency Landing of Soyuz!

JF Mezei wrote on Fri, 12 Oct 2018
12:59:09 -0400:

On 2018-10-12 06:55, Jeff Findley wrote:

There is a connection between the two so that the automated abort system
on the capsule can be triggered.


So except for triggering abort, the Dragon crewed vehicle is just an
inert payload on top of the automated remotely controlled Falcon 9?


I know you can never be bothered to look things up before you make
ignorant statements, but you should read the Falcon 9 payload
integration document.


I would have expected the crew would have had more control over it and
would get far mroe feedback/telemetry from it.


Why would you expect that? What is the crew going to do?



NASA has already said that the vehicles for the commercial crew test
flights are not the "long pole in the tent". At this point the
certification "paperwork" is what will take the most time.


Does this mean that SpaceX is physically ready to launch it with people
in it, and it has concluded the design/build and testing of it ?


It means just what it says. However, let me say a bit more. The
first Crew Dragon capsule has completed testing and been delivered to
the Cape. They're currently loading parachutes, fuel, test sensors,
and other consumables, which I can't imagine would take very long if
they needed it done right now. This capsule is the test article for
DM-1, the unmanned orbital test flight.



This puts us squarely in the position many of us feared. NASA is
dragging its feet on the certification part while continuing to fly on
Soyuz which is clearly not as safe as one would hope.


Yesterday's event seems to point to it being safe. A slight malfunction
detected, abort triggered automatically and crew are safe and sound.


'Safe' vehicles don't get in situations where big pieces (like the
booster rocket) fail and they have to exercise their emergency
systems.



Besides, we all know how quickly Russia resumes flights after
"incidents" like this. They're very quick to find what they think is
the *one* cause, correct it, and start flying again. They will ignore
all other "distractions" in the interest of time.

NASA, on the other hand, identifies all possible issues with the
spacecraft and/or vehicle and fixes all of them before they fly again.
This tends to find *many* lingering issues that should have been fixed
in the past but never were. Just look at what they did after Apollo 1,
Challenger, and Columbia.


How long did it take for NASA to find Columbia was damaed during launch
due to falling foam? A couple of days, right?


That was hardly the only thing they found. Go read the report.


It seems to me that it spent months and months debating the management
mentality that allowed this known problem to persist. The actual
mechanical problem got circumscribed very quickly.


How things seem to you is frequently not in exact 1:1 accord with our
present reality.


It seems to me that yesterday's failure was not "spectacular". No big
explosions. Just an alarm and automated ejection and safe landing of
crew. For all we know all was find with the stage but a faulty sensor
caused the alarm.


Well, perhaps that's all YOU know, but those of us who are paying
attention know that there was a booster failure that caused the core
stage to shut down. Preliminary reports indicate that one of the
strap ons failed to separate cleanly and hit the core stage, damaging
it. The question is why this happened and is it a single event
failure or could it happen again? That's what they're investigating.



I have one final thought. Russia is the only country on the planet
still launching people on top of a launch vehicle which is *directly*
derived from an ICBM.


And solid rocket boosters for SLS arent directly derived from ICBMs?


No more so than any solid or liquid rocket is.


Isn't the whole point of mandating solids for SLS to help ATK continue
to keep the ability to produce solids for ICBMs ?


Yes, but you once again seem to not understand things.


And out of curiosity, how does Soyuz's ICMB origins (as opposed to just
being old) make it different from Falcon 8? Wouldn't the design have
evolved over the years to make Soyus into its own rocket instead of an
ICBM launcher?


The first two stages (the strap ons and the core stage) aren't
significantly different from the original R7 ICBM.



Those lower stages on the Soyuz launch vehicle,
which appear to have failed to separate cleanly on this launch, are
pretty much the same as the first ICBM from the USSR.


The NASA astronaut at yesterday's press conference said the failure
happened just after clean separation of the boosters.


He was wrong. One of the four strap ons failed to separate cleanly
and struck the core (second) stage, causing it to shut down. I doubt
he said "clean separation" because he has no way to know that.



necessarily the best thing to use on an orbital launch vehicle. For
example, Falcon 9 was deliberately designed to use no pyrotechnics for
its separation events.


Pyros make things really hard to re-use. NASA used plenty of them on
its Shuttle, didn't it ?


I wouldn't say 'plenty' and most of them were for emergency systems.


AND THIS JUST IN:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45842731

"Speaking in Moscow, Nasa head Jim Bridenstine said he expected a
December mission to the International Space Station (ISS) to go ahead as
planned."

To me, this points to initial investigation pointing to either a sensor
malfunction when everything was working well, ...


Nope. You really need to avoid giving serious consideration to how
things 'seem' to you or what you think facts might 'point' to. You
are almost inevitably wrong.


... or they already identified
what failed and know what to check on the new rocket before granting it
right to fly.


They know WHAT happened. What they don't know is WHY it happened.


--
"Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the
truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong."
-- Thomas Jefferson
 




Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Soyuz rocket launch aborted [email protected] Space Shuttle 0 October 11th 18 12:23 PM
Behind the beautiful Soyuz launch: overcoming a communications emergency Jim Oberg Space Station 2 April 11th 06 03:50 AM
Behind the beautiful Soyuz launch: overcoming a communications emergency Jim Oberg History 2 April 11th 06 03:50 AM
Soyuz emergency landing in U.S. instructions. Pat Flannery History 7 June 21st 04 02:22 AM


All times are GMT +1. The time now is 02:26 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright ©2004-2024 SpaceBanter.com.
The comments are property of their posters.