Soyuz TMA-10 ballistic landing cause determined

Via José (and also reported at MSNBC.com):

The reason for the rough landing of Soyuz TMA-10 has been determined

29/1/2008, Lenta.ru

The reason for the ballistic descent of the descent vehicle Soyuz TMA-10 with the ISS crew members onboard during 21 October 2007, was caused by damage to a cable in the spacecraft’s control panel, said RKK Energiya leader Vitalii Lopota.

“The Commission of Inquiry for the reasons for the contingency situation finished its work and established that the reason for ballistic descent was the cable fault, which connected the control panel with the Soyuz descent equipment,” said Lopota. According to him, RKK Energiya will take all measures to avoid a repetition of this situation.

On 21 October 2007 the descending ship capsule Soyuz TMA-10, on which was being returned the members of the 15th ISS Expedition – Russians Fyodor Yurchikhin and Oleg Kotov (more half a year in orbit) and the first cosmonaut of Malaysia, Sheik Muzafar Shukor (11 days in orbit) – passed from the controlled regime to ballistic. The capsule landed 70 kilometers from the planned landing place and the cosmonauts endured overloads up to nine gravities/units.

According to the chief ballastician of Mission Control Center (TSUP), Nikolai Ivanov, the overload was short-term and did not threaten the health and life of the cosmonauts. “The ballistic descent – into the regime of which the day before, the descent vehicle with the cosmonauts of the 15th Expedition and the first cosmonaut of Malaysia, the control system transferred in the section of descent into the Earth’s atmosphere – is not a nonstandard regime, and the overload to nine units, tested by the crew and which was being continued of approximately ten seconds, did not threaten their life and health,” said Ivanov. “There was a failure, but the Soyuz control system not only did not refuse, but, that – of principal importance – successfully transferred the descent vehicle into the more reliable regime of descent into the Earth’s atmosphere. If this happened, God forbid, with the American shuttle, in which a regime of ballistic descent is not provided, then it would be necessary to go with a funeral procession to meet the astronauts inside it.”

The difference between the ballistic and controlled descent is that the controlled automation constantly orients the descent vehicle by its flat lower part to the Earth, which ensures lift due to the incidental airflow, and it ensures minimum overloads for the crew up to four gravities/units, Ivanov explained. “The descent along the ballistic trajectory without the participation of lift is comparable with a falling stone, but if we permitted it to fall like a stone, then the overload would reach a limit incompatible with human life. Therefore we constantly rotated the descent vehicle around its axis, it achieved approximately one revolution after half a minute, what contributed (to transfer) the life-threatening ‘foot-head’ overload into the more acceptable ‘chest-spin’ overload due to the centrifugal force,” said the ballistics chief.

According to the 15th Expedition commander Fyodor Yurchikhin, “The rotation of the descent vehicle was sharp, rigid, with strong vestibular irritation, which I could feel from the left seat of the capsule in which I sat. The overload increased gradually, up to a tolerable 8.56 units. After overload at seven units we ceased to report to Earth about our health in order to concentrate on maintaining our respiration. But the crew members did not experience loss of sight and consciousness, and we understood that we just had to endure the ordeal.”

“Russia may build new shuttle spacecraft by 2015”, RIA Novosti, 29/1. Energiya’s spacecraft proposal (it has 6 projects, 2 of which it will submit to the Russian Space Agency in the near future) would likely have a lifting-body design and carry a crew of 6. More via Novosti Kosmonavtiki news №682: Sergei Krikalyov, Energiya’s deputy design project leader, is convinced that several different spacecraft designs will be required to realize Russia’s space projects. “It is not possible to create a ship which would equally be suitable for flights the Moon, Mars, and for the flights to near-Earth orbit. Therefore I do not exclude that not one manned ship will be built, but several,” emphasized the cosmonaut. He said the new ship will be constructed at the new spaceport.

Energiya chief Valerii Lopota said at the 31st Academic Readings in Cosmonautics conference that the Soyuz and Progress ships would be transferred over to digital technologies in the 2008-2009 period which would increase their reliability.

30 years of Progress

Energiya press release: 20 January 2008 marked 30 years since the launch of the first Progress cargo ship. The Progress ships have served the Russian space program reliably (and mostly been ignored in the media). ESA’s Automated Transfer Vehicle cargo ship uses Russian propellant and tanks in its design, and the first launch is currently set for 22 February. It will dock to the aft of the Zvezda Service Module.

(Tass newspaper frontpage via Novosti Kosmonavtiki)

From Novosti Kosmonavtiki news №679:

20/01/2008/08:35 – Russian scientists will conduct a series of experiments to investigate the Moon, including the use of Japanese instruments

The project “Luna-Glob” (Luna-Globe) is planned to solve complex research tasks for the Study of Earth satellite, said Lev Zelenyi, the director of the Institute for Space Research at the Russian Academy of Sciences. The project “was broadened. It includes several phases, including the dumping on the surface of the Moon of so-called penetrators to study our satellite,” said Lev Zelenyi.

He explained that penetratory (impact penetrating probes) are planned to be fired from the automatic spacecraft, which will be placed in the Moon’s orbit. The probes under the action of lunar gravity will drive away also at a high speed and enter into the soil of the Moon at the depth of several meters. The on-board sensors, which operate from autonomous power supplies, can transmit information about the composition and the properties of lunar soil, and the seismic characteristics of Earth’s natural satellite. “It was decided to use penetrators of Japanese production, since the Russian technologies in this region can be considered lost,” reported L. Zelenyi.

Besides the use of impact probes, the “Luna -Glob” project provides for the launch of lunar orbital apparatuses, and over the long term and the creation of a rover landing station, which will travel across the lunar surface.

The equipment installed on the orbital devices, in the words of L. Zelenyi, in particular, will have to investigate the exosphere of the Moon, the space around it, and also magnetic and gravity anomalies whose nature is not yet clear.

Furthermore, on the orbital lunar apparatus will be established the instrument “LORD”, designed to study ultra-high-energy cosmic rays. The device would capture elementary particles with enormous speed and energy. Under normal circumstances, such a particle can not be caught by any devices, since they can easily pass through layers of any substance. The “LORD” instrument will recover those particles of superhigh energies, which “after piercing” the Moon, will be slowed down, said L. Zelenyi.

“The China gambit”, The Space Review, 21/1. Article by Dwayne Day on how the USA could involve China in its space program (mainly the ISS) and use such involvement as leverage against Russia should the latter country become hostile and deny astronauts access to space via Soyuz flights once the Shuttle program is shut down. A pragmatic plan I guess, though it comes across as somewhat patronizing; of the dominant country “managing” others. Equally, Russia and China could team up to “manage” the USA! So it’s a 3-way game.

Manber’s proposal is clever and thought-provoking. He has not simply proposed cooperation with China for its own sake, or even for the benefit of improving relations with China, but to use such cooperation as a lever against the Russians. This is not the first time that someone has proposed that encouraging China in space could have strategic benefits for the United States—four years ago I wrote about the benefits of a cooperative/competitive space race with China (see “The benefits of a new space race”, The Space Review, April 26, 2004), suggesting that we encourage them to spend money on human spacecraft instead of missiles. But Manber is apparently the first to suggest that we use China to moderate the Russians, something that Nixon gained as a side benefit of his China rapprochement nearly four decades ago.

“Russia To Raise Space Funding, Build New Space Center”, 22/1, RIAN/Space Daily. Space funding is to be raised by 13% (doesn’t say the actual amount).

“Russian space center to launch boosters”, Space Daily, 23/1. The new Vostochnii space center will be built near Uglegorsk in the Amur region of eastern Russia. Manned flights are expected to begin by 2018.

“Ivanov Says Russia Must Not Turn Into Space Cabman”, Space Daily, 24/1. Russia shouldn’t rely on revenue from launches of foreign satellites for most of its space funding, and should focus on creating the new space center, Vostochnii, to ensure the country’s access to space (rather than risk being blackmailed by Kazakhstan, which leases out Baikonur to Russia).

Mars over Moscow

In this nicely symbolic photo by Seiji Yoshimoto at the NPO Intercos site, the red planet Mars is visible over the red star of the Kremlin! (Full photo page of Moscow scenes here – there are a lot of high-resolution photos on the one page.) Let’s hope that is a good omen! (As in landing there one day.)

From Novosti Kosmonavtiki news №677:

10/01/2008/00:02 – The cost of the Mars flight simulation experiment will exceed 15 million dollars

The total cost of the Russian project on the “Mars-500” flight simulation to the Red Planet, which will take place at the site of the Institute of Biomedical Problems (IMBP, Moscow), will exceed 15 million dollars, reported the project leader, the first deputy director of IMBP Victor Baranov. “If some additional expenditures appear, then general expenditures will be increased,” he added.

Among the first unplanned expenditures V. Baranov named was the elimination of some deficiencies and observations, that were revealed in the activities of the experimental complex during the daily technical experiment carried out during November. He also reported that the material reward of volunteers for the participation in the “Mars-500” experiment will compose 50 thousand Euros. This number was announced by the European space agency, which participates in the experiment. “We have an understanding with ESA that the payment for the Russian and European participants must not differ,” said V. Baranov.

He also did not exclude that the basic material reward of the highly professional participants will be above average. According to V. Baranov, there was also discussed the question of encouragement by rewarding those participants who carry out the experiment more honestly. “But this question will be linked with the personal contracts with each of the testers,” the Russian scientist specified.

The Mars flight simulation experiment will be prolonged more than 520 days – precisely this many days will be required in order to fly so far to the planet, to spend 30 days on its surface and then to return. All this time the six testers will be located in the isolated modules, fulfilling the functional duties of participants in the Martian expedition. Two participants in the experiment will be selected from ESA, which signed with the Institute of Biomedical Problems (IMBP) of RAN (Russian Academy of Science) an agreement on participating in the project. Four more will be selected by the IMBP specialists.

“Russia set to develop new launch vehicle despite problems”, RIAN, 11/1. The Angara rocket is supposed to launch from the «Восточный», Eastern space center, but the rocket has yet to be developed.

Mars-500 updates

“Mars-500 Simulated Space Mission”, 24/12: image gallery at RIA Novosti. The latest issue of Novosti Kosmonavtiki magazine, №1 2008, has an article about the recent Mars-500 experiment on its site: «В ИМБП стартовал проект «Марс-500»», “IMBP began the Mars-500 project”, including an interview with cosmonaut Sergei Ryazanskii (use Babelfish for a rough translation – the article is very long and I do not have the energy to struggle to correct the translator’s convoluted attempts!).

Sergei Krikalyov seems to have been dropped from the Soyuz TMA-14/ISS-19 crew as commander; he is no longer in the latest ISS flight crew roster up to ISS-21, though the roster is not yet finalized. (Via Olaf and this thread at the Novosti Kosmonavtiki forum, posted in August.) So perhaps he was moved to a later mission? Or will he be in management for a few years, though he is still an active cosmonaut?

ISS cosmonaut roster, December 2007

Expedition	Prime crew	Backup crew
ISS-17	Sergei Volkov, Oleg Kononenko	Maksim Sura’ev, Oleg Skripochka
ISS-18	Salizhan Sharipov	Yurii Lonchakov
ISS-18S (6-person crew begins)	Gennadii Padalka	Maksim Sura’ev
ISS-19S	Yurii Lonchakov	Dimitri Kondrat’ev
ISS-20S	Mikhail Kornienko, Roman Romanenko	Aleksandr Skvortsov, Oleg Skripochka
ISS-21S	Maksim Sura’ev	Fyodor Yurchikhin

Anatoly Zak has a new article on his website: “Russian space program: a decade review (2000-2010)”, 3/1. After the near-catastrophic social turmoil in the 1990s, Russia’s space program is slowly being reinvigorated, but it is dangerously dependent upon continued high oil prices for most of its funding.