Soyuz-1 terminal velocity

Read quite a bit now about Komarov and Soyuz-1 and something doesn't
stack up to me regarding the speed the capsule hit the ground.

We know the parachutes didn't open, but the various website and books
I've read estimate the terminal speed to be 500mph, 450kph, 40m/s,
25m/s.

I think 40m/s is about 400mph, 25m/s given by Leonov in Two Sides of
The Moon would be about 300mph assuming my flawed arithmetic is correct.

So the slowest we can assume is 300mph, pretty fast! But looking at the
pics of Komarov's capsule after the accident there doesn't seem to be
any dent in the ground of any sort. Surely at 500mph there would be a
huge hole? And wouldn't even a strongly built capsule be largely
scattered at hitting the ground at that speed? The pics show the
capsule as being pretty much destroyed, but still mostly in one place,
and on fire so it doesn't seem as if the wreckage has been collected
together for photographic purposes.

Of course the weather would be pretty cold in that part of the Urals in
April, but the absence of snow in the photos makes me think it wasn't
that cold so the ground would be reasonably soft. I was in the Urals
last April and it's wasn't particularly cold despite lots of snow.

Leonov, who saw the crash scene, immediately saw the chutes hadn't
opened, but I wonder if they partially did, enough to slow the capsule
down so it hit the ground at a much slower speed than postulated? Do
you think the retros could have fired? Slowing the craft down over the
last two meters?

So does anyone have enough maths to work out the theoretical terminal
velocity? And also don't Soyuz craft jettison their heatshields to
enable the retros to fire? The pics of the crash scene seem to show a
separated heatshield (in pieces), not matching the pics of the
destroyed main capsule so is it reasonable to assume the heatshield was
jettisoned and the retros did fire.

Any opinions on this?

Ste




--
Take out no before @ and spam after

Ste Kearney wrote:
We know the parachutes didn't open, but the various website and books
I've read estimate the terminal speed to be 500mph, 450kph, 40m/s,
25m/s.

according to Novosti Kosmonavtiki magazine
(http://www.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/c...rch-1999.shtml)
from no. 5 from 1999 at 63 page is writen such sentence:
"{...}Meeting landing capsule with the ground has taken place at speed more
than 50 km/s.
{...}"

--
regards -- SMS ;-)
= = =
http://astro.zeto.czest.pl/astros/

On Mon, 27 Dec 2004 15:33:43 +0100, "SMS ;-\)." wrote:

And while we're talking about Soyuz 1, given the launch time in April,
wasn't it, in fact, the first manned spacecraft launched in darkness?
Has a picture of the Soyuz launch ever been released? The Great I Is

wrote:

And while we're talking about Soyuz 1, given the launch time in April,
wasn't it, in fact, the first manned spacecraft launched in darkness?

Yes, that's true...it was 5:35:00.1 am local (Baikonur) time !

Has a picture of the Soyuz launch ever been released? The Great I Is

I have only a movie...not a picture

anyone has?

On 2004-12-27 15:49:54 +0000, "SMS ;-\)." said:

wrote:

And while we're talking about Soyuz 1, given the launch time in April,
wasn't it, in fact, the first manned spacecraft launched in darkness?

Yes, that's true...it was 5:35:00.1 am local (Baikonur) time !

Has a picture of the Soyuz launch ever been released? The Great I Is

I have only a movie...not a picture

anyone has?

I'd like to see that movie, mate!

And didn't the capsule land at night time too? Checked - it was 03:24
GMT, that would be 8:24 I think local time, so maybe not!

Reading Leonov again, he seems to contradict himself with the details
of this flight. First he says the plan was to 'dock' Soyuz-1 and
Soyuz-2, then in the same paragraph he says the transfer of cosmonauts
would be by spacewalk. We assume the Soviets had no docking
arrangements on Soyuz capsules then? Also he states it was thought too
dangerous to send three cosmonauts up in Soyuz-1, hence Komarov blasted
off alone. But again in the same paragraph Leonov says Soyuz-2 would
follow almost immediately with three cosmonauts aboard. So suddenly
it's not deemed too dangerous to have three on board.

And with regard to these mp3 files on the net perporting to be
Komarov's last words, seems strange to me. I think I read in 'Starman'
that the Soviets coded radio transmissions or encrypted it. Dunno how
possible that was in the sixties. Also the one file I have is just some
guy speaking in prepared stilted Russian saying "Privet narodam nashei
rodiny, prokladyvayushei put' chelovechestva k
komunizmu..lyotchik-kosmonavt - Komarov" which, curtesy of my Russian
gf means "Hello to the peoples of our homeland, leading mankind to
communism. Cosmonaut-pilot Komarov". The clear voice on this file must
surley be ground control addressing Komarov? Anyway...

Ste



--
Take out no before @ and spam after

On Mon, 27 Dec 2004 17:47:17 +0000, Ste Kearney
wrote:

Reading Leonov again, he seems to contradict himself with the details
of this flight. First he says the plan was to 'dock' Soyuz-1 and
Soyuz-2, then in the same paragraph he says the transfer of cosmonauts
would be by spacewalk. We assume the Soviets had no docking
arrangements on Soyuz capsules then?

The craft were designed to dock, but there was no facility for
internal crew transfer.

Ste Kearney wrote:

I'd like to see that movie, mate!

here is it:
http://www.videocosmos.com/store.shtm

And didn't the capsule land at night time too? Checked - it was 03:24
GMT, that would be 8:24 I think local time, so maybe not!

read at:
http://www.svengrahn.pp.se/histind/S...d/Soyanaly.htm !

read at:
http://www.astronautix.com/articles/kams1967.htm

good luck!
--
SMS ;-)
= = =

On 2004-12-27 19:01:07 +0000, "SMS ;-\)." said:

Ste Kearney wrote:

I'd like to see that movie, mate!

here is it:
http://www.videocosmos.com/store.shtm

Dammit, Windows Media Player for Mac won't play ANYTHING - not even
Windows asx files like these...


And didn't the capsule land at night time too? Checked - it was 03:24
GMT, that would be 8:24 I think local time, so maybe not!

read at:
http://www.svengrahn.pp.se/histind/S...d/Soyanaly.htm !

I've read this before earlier in my research but thanks cos it's an
interesting re-read. The translation of Komarovs speech (if it is him)
is certainly wrong, even my limited Russian knows that. Rodina (rodiny
in the speech - Russian is an inflected language and nouns take case)
is Motherland certainly not Fatherland - every Russian knows Russia as
Mother Russia (Rodina) and only Fascists refer to the Fatherland! And
1967 is not so long after WW2, or Great Patriotic War to Russians. Also
the clip is the same speech cut and edited, doesn't make sense:

Komarov: (asuuming it IS Komarov)

Privet, narodom nashei rodiny, prokladyvayushei put' chelovechestva k
komunizmu..lyotchik-kosmonavt - Komarov.

Then noise with garbled very fast maybe Russian voices...

Then Komarov again:

Komunizmu

Which doesn't make sense since it's the gentive (?) case of the Russian
word Komunism (communism) and would really be said singularly with
case. Having said that russian cases are a bit baffling to me! I think
I am right though, gf confirms and it's almost certainly the single
word komunismu cut from the main speech.

Then more noisy fast garbled speech.

Then Komarov again:

Narodom nashei rodiny, prokladyvayushei put' chelovechestva k
komunizmu..lyotchik-kosmonavt - Komarov

Same as first speech but with Privet cut from the beginning.



read at:
http://www.astronautix.com/articles/kams1967.htm

Saw this one too again early in my interest in this subject, good to reread!



good luck!

Cheers! My gf's best friends dad works high up at Baikonur, and I was
invited to a launch but can't get there until Easter . Wonder if he
can find more info on Soyuz-1 and Komarov.

Ste



--
Take out no before @ and spam after

Ste Kearney wrote:


Leonov, who saw the crash scene, immediately saw the chutes hadn't
opened, but I wonder if they partially did, enough to slow the capsule
down so it hit the ground at a much slower speed than postulated? Do
you think the retros could have fired? Slowing the craft down over the
last two meters?


The photos of the crash site I've seen seem to indicate that the heat
shield stayed attached to the bottom of the Soyuz all the way to impact:
it's the cracked white thing in this photo that looks sort of like
firebrick: http://www.astronautix.com/graphics/s/soy1crsh.jpg
Without the heat shield being jettisoned, the landing rockets can't be
fired, as they would be covered by the heat shield.



So does anyone have enough maths to work out the theoretical terminal
velocity? And also don't Soyuz craft jettison their heatshields to
enable the retros to fire? The pics of the crash scene seem to show a
separated heatshield (in pieces), not matching the pics of the
destroyed main capsule so is it reasonable to assume the heatshield
was jettisoned and the retros did fire.


I think the heat shield probably blew off on impact from the landing
rockets and hydrogen peroxide RCS propellant being ignited by the impact
force; normally is is jettisoned at a fairly high altitude, and the odds
of it falling down right next to the capsule impact site seem a bit long
to me.

Pat

So does anyone have enough maths to work out the theoretical terminal
velocity? And also don't Soyuz craft jettison their heatshields to
enable the retros to fire? The pics of the crash scene seem to show a
separated heatshield (in pieces), not matching the pics of the
destroyed main capsule so is it reasonable to assume the heatshield was
jettisoned and the retros did fire.


I think the heat shield probably blew off on impact from the landing
rockets and hydrogen peroxide RCS propellant being ignited by the
impact force; normally is is jettisoned at a fairly high altitude, and
the odds of it falling down right next to the capsule impact site seem
a bit long to me.

So would the heatshield have been jettisoned by altitude sensors, or
maybe by the release of the chutes? Or even by the retros blasting it
off. In any case why did it stay attached the to capsule until the end?
Maybe another failure or even the capsule travelling so fast it didn't
have time to separate properly?

I have this nagging feeling the retros actually fired, why wouldn't
they? Leaving the heatshield close to the craft, because of the the
high terminal velocity. This would explain the the lack of a huge hole
in the ground like you'd expect from a 3 ton ball hitting the soil at
500mph.

I'd love to get the official report from the Russian authorites, is
this public domain now I wonder?







Take out no before @ and spam after