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posted by martyb on Monday October 15 2018, @02:00AM   Printer-friendly

Soyuz failure probe narrows focus on collision at booster separation

Russian investigators believe a malfunction during separation of the Soyuz rocket's four liquid-fueled first stage boosters two minutes after liftoff from Kazakhstan led to an emergency landing of a two-man crew heading for the International Space Station, officials said Friday.

Speaking to reporters Friday in Moscow, veteran cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev, head of the Russian space agency's human spaceflight program, said the investigation into Thursday's launch failure has narrowed on a collision between part of the Soyuz rocket's first stage and the launcher's second stage.

Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin and NASA astronaut Nick Hague were carried away from the failing rocket by an emergency escape system, and they safely landed inside their descent module near Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, around 250 miles (400 kilometers) northeast of the Baikonur Cosmodrome, where the launch originated.

The Soyuz first stage is comprised of four boosters, each powered by a four-nozzle kerosene-fueled RD-107A main engine, that burn for 1 minute, 58 seconds, during launch. Once their engine firings are complete, the boosters are supposed to jettison simultaneously at an altitude of roughly 150,000 feet (45 kilometers) to tumble back to Earth. Krikalev said Friday that one of the boosters did not separate from the Soyuz core stage — or second stage — cleanly.

Previously: Soyuz Crew Vehicle Fails Mid-Flight, Astronauts OK


Original Submission

Related Stories

Soyuz Crew Vehicle Fails Mid-Flight, Astronauts OK 34 comments

Soyuz FG fails during ascent – Soyuz MS-10 crew safe after ballistic entry abort

The Russian federal space agency, Roscosmos, launched their Soyuz MS-10 crew vehicle with two new crewmembers that were set for the International Space Station. However, the launch – which took place on Thursday at 0840 UTC from Baikonur – failed a few minutes into flight. Soyuz MS-10 was then aborted on a ballistic entry, before safely landing downrange of the launch site.

The crewed Soyuz, which would normally ferry three people to the Station, was carrying a reduced crew complement as part of Russia's initiative to keep their total crew presence on Station to just two until the launch, late next year, of their primary science lab, Nauka.

However, those plans are unlikely to apply now Soyuz MS-10 has failed to arrive at the ISS, with the Soyuz FG likely to be grounded for some time as a State Commision invesigation[sic] takes place.

Also at The Verge, Reuters, and CNN, and CBS.


Original Submission

Roscosmos Completes Investigation into October Soyuz Failure, Finds Assembly Issue 13 comments

Humans are to blame for the October failure of the Soyuz rocket:

Roscosmos: An assembly error doomed our Soyuz, but we promise it won't happen again

The Russian space agency, Roscosmos, has completed its investigation into October's Soyuz mishap in record time, pointing the finger of blame at problems during assembly.

Mutterings emitted from the space agency earlier this week suggested that the issue was related to a sensor that detects stage separation of the booster. In yesterday's press conference, Roscosmos provided a few more details and shared a terrifying video[*] showing the moment things went bad for the Soyuz. It then gave the green light for putting a crew back on the thing next month.

The actual explosion was, according to the State Commission tasked with getting to the bottom of the mess, caused by one of the side boosters not separating correctly and striking the rocket core. This led to the depressurisation of a fuel tank and the loss of control of the booster. The problems start at 1:23 in the video.

Of course, the real question is why did the separation fail? The answer, according to Roscosmos, was a failure to open a nozzle at the top of the strap-on booster to vent its tank. This meant the booster did not separate cleanly. The nozzle failure was caused by a faulty contact sensor, which had been "bent" during assembly of the Soyuz at the Baikonur cosmodrome.

[*] [This appears to be the video. --Ed.]

Also at Inverse.

Previously: Soyuz Crew Vehicle Fails Mid-Flight, Astronauts OK
Soyuz Failure Narrowed Down to Collision Between Booster and Core Stage


Original Submission

Soyuz Rocket Carrying Crew Successfully Launches and Docks with ISS 4 comments

Two months after mishap, Russian Soyuz rockets back into space with crew

Less than two months after a booster separation issue with a Soyuz rocket caused a dramatic, high-gravity landing, the Russian vehicle soared back into space on Monday at 6:31 ET (11:31 UTC). The launch from Kazakhstan, under mostly clear, blue skies, was nominal as each of the rocket's first, second, and third stages fired normally.

The launch sent NASA astronaut Anne McClain, Canadian David Saint-Jacques, and Russian Oleg Kononenko into space aboard their Soyuz MS-11 spacecraft. After making four orbits around the Earth, their Soyuz spacecraft is scheduled to dock with the Russian segment of the International Space Station at 12:35pm ET (17:35 UTC) Monday.

According to SpaceFlightNow.com the docking was successful.

Previously: Soyuz Crew Vehicle Fails Mid-Flight, Astronauts OK
Soyuz Failure Narrowed Down to Collision Between Booster and Core Stage
NASA Confident in Soyuz, Ready for Crewed Launch in December
Roscosmos Completes Investigation into October Soyuz Failure, Finds Assembly Issue


Original Submission

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  • (Score: 2) by corey on Monday October 15 2018, @02:55AM (6 children)

    by corey (2202) on Monday October 15 2018, @02:55AM (#748795)

    So they're no longer treating it as malicious?

    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @03:07AM (3 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @03:07AM (#748799)

      One thing is for certain. We know that it was the Russians and their meddling!

      • (Score: 2) by takyon on Monday October 15 2018, @03:18AM (1 child)

        by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Monday October 15 2018, @03:18AM (#748803) Journal

        *Russians and their vodka

        --
        [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @03:49AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @03:49AM (#748810)

          Could be worse. If tensions escalate, they might deploy bear cavalry to space to fight the US Space Force!

      • (Score: 1) by Sulla on Monday October 15 2018, @07:11AM

        by Sulla (5173) on Monday October 15 2018, @07:11AM (#748860) Journal

        The article did specifically bring up collusion (Russians have a history of swapping u's for i's in government documents). I dont know how the various stages can collude, but that doesnt mean Drumph isnt btfo must impeach

        --
        Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
    • (Score: 2) by BK on Monday October 15 2018, @04:11AM (1 child)

      by BK (4868) on Monday October 15 2018, @04:11AM (#748822)

      Too early for that.
      Someone could have maliciously over-tightened a bolt or maliciously loosened a control wire. Or maliciously spilled vodka.

      --
      ...but you HAVE heard of me.
  • (Score: 1) by Barenflimski on Monday October 15 2018, @04:07AM (3 children)

    by Barenflimski (6836) on Monday October 15 2018, @04:07AM (#748820)

    The greatest thing about rockets, is when things go wrong, they are described as "ballistic" and "explosive."

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @05:30AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @05:30AM (#748839)

      I prefer "safely landed".

    • (Score: 4, Funny) by driverless on Monday October 15 2018, @09:13AM

      by driverless (4770) on Monday October 15 2018, @09:13AM (#748912)

      The greatest thing about rockets, is when things go wrong, they are described as "ballistic" and "explosive."

      And reactors undergo "power excursions". Yeah, it underwent a power excursion a few days ago but it's back in the office now with no explanation apart from a dozen empty bottles of mezcal and a lucha libre mask.

    • (Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Monday October 15 2018, @02:43PM

      by nitehawk214 (1304) on Monday October 15 2018, @02:43PM (#749063)

      The greatest thing about rockets, is when things go wrong, they are described as "ballistic" and "explosive."

      Depends on the rocket. Sometimes these are the goals.

      --
      "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
  • (Score: 5, Informative) by pTamok on Monday October 15 2018, @09:18AM (1 child)

    by pTamok (3042) on Monday October 15 2018, @09:18AM (#748916)

    AFAIK the Soyuz OGB SAS was not used. The timeline of a normal Soyuz launch is here:

    RussianSpaceWEb.com: How Soyuz rides into orbit [russianspaceweb.com]

    Milestone................................Elapsed time
    Liftoff..................................0.00 (Note, this is liftoff, NOT engine start)
    Emergency escape rocket, SAS, jettison...114.16 seconds
    Stage I separation.......................117.80 seconds
    Payload fairing separation...............157.48 seconds
    Stage II engine cutoff command, GK-2.....285.05 seconds
    Stage II separation......................287.30 seconds
    Separation of Stage III tail section.....297.05 seconds
    Stage III main engine cutoff.............524.96 seconds
    Stage III - spacecraft separation........528.26 seconds

    You see that the escape rocket is jettisoned before Stage I separation, so if there is a problem with Stage I separation, the escape rocket cannot be activated as it has already gone.

    A video of a successful launch of Soyuz TMA-19M is here: Soyuz TMA-19M successful launch [youtube.com]

    The video of the failed launch of Soyuz MS-10 is here: Soyuz MS-10 failed launch [youtube.com]

    If you compare the two, you can see starting at about 2 minutes 50 seconds into the successful video, the jettison of the escape rocket (OGB SAS), followed by the Stage 1 separation, showing the classic Korolev cross formed by the jettisoned boosters. In the launch failure, you can see a Korolev cross [wikipedia.org] is not formed. If you hunt about on the Internet, you can find a video of the Korolev cross being formed from the vantage point of the Soyuz looking backwards.

    This video starts at the jettison of the escape rocket, which you see as the bright object detaching from the Soyuz: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KF_9mVUvl3Y [youtube.com] ; followed by the Stage I separation that went wrong.

    The full launch sequence of MS-10 is here, without the cutaways to the interior of the crew capsule or pre-rendered animations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5bc3dIn0m4 [youtube.com]

    Lift off at 00:20 +/- 1s
    Escape rocket jettison at 02:15 +/- 1s (elapsed from lift off approx 115 secs)
    Attempted Stage I separation at 02:18 +/- 1s (You see the interruption in the exhaust trail begin to form, followed at least two of the boosters falling away as planned, but it then goes pear shaped cloud shaped.)

    The Russian Space Web website goes into detail on the launch failure here: http://www.russianspaceweb.com/soyuz-ms-10.html [russianspaceweb.com]

    According to Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov, quoted by TASS, the emergency escape system was activated at T+123 seconds in flight. As a result, the escape began after the separation of the emergency rockets (at T+114.6 seconds) and the first stage at T+117.80 seconds at an altitude of around 50 kilometers.

    There are more details on the escape system in the article here: http://www.russianspaceweb.com/soyuz_sas.html [russianspaceweb.com] - Note that the table incorrectly states the SAS was used for MS-10. The article does, however, explain:

    To provide an escape during a short period after jettisoning of the emergency escape rocket, but before the separation of the payload fairing, which previously had no immediate escape scenario, two pairs of solid motors were placed on the fairing. In turn, this upgrade allowed to drop the main escape rocket 123 seconds after the launch, instead of previous 160 seconds, thus compensating for added mass of the new escape system.

    Those rockets are the 'RDG' rockets, not so named, but referred to in the Wikipedia article on Soyuz abort modes. [wikipedia.org]

    From the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project onward, the soyuz spacecraft also had a secondary set of four rocket motors at the top of the fairing that can propel the escape head section away from the rocket during the period between the jettisoning of the SAS at T+115s until fairing deployment at T+157s. In contrast to the SAS these rockets only move the escape head section a small distance away from the rocket, as at these altitudes there is enough time for the landing system to deploy.

    • (Score: 1) by pTamok on Tuesday October 16 2018, @08:17AM

      by pTamok (3042) on Tuesday October 16 2018, @08:17AM (#749438)

      Nice presentation by an enthusiast, giving a plausible explanation of what happened. Uses beer bottle as a prop.

      YouTube: Scott Manley:Soyuz MS-10 Failure - Updates & Answers To Your Questions [youtube.com]

      He states the guaranteed lifetime in orbit of the Soyuz is determined by the rate of self-decomposition of the hydrogen peroxide attitude adjustment fuel of the descent module. Others have linked it to how long the tanks/pipes/valves of the various propulsions systems will resist corrosion by their fuels (mainly nitrogen tetroxide and unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine). Either way, there's a good reason for the use-by date.

  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday October 15 2018, @02:16PM

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Monday October 15 2018, @02:16PM (#749038) Journal

    Now if only NASA or the NTSB could conduct investigations that fast.

    NTSB: our conclusion is that something went wrong with the plane during flight, but we can assure everyone it has nothing to do with management interference in operations or in cutting costs.

    --
    People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @02:30PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @02:30PM (#749048)

    If they have to de-crew the station, can Dragon dock?

    If Dragon's docking procedure is to fly near and have the arm reach out, grab, and bring it in.
    Can that happen if there is no one on board?

    • (Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Monday October 15 2018, @02:51PM

      by nitehawk214 (1304) on Monday October 15 2018, @02:51PM (#749069)

      Perhaps the arm can be controlled from the ground?

      --
      "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
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