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Soyuz Fails Again in an Exceptionally Dangerous Re-entry

GlobalSecurity.org
By Charles P. Vick

The Saturday April 19, 2008 re-entry of the ISS, Soyuz TMA-11, "Expedition-16" crew and Guest South Korean Cosmonaut So-yeon Yi was subjected to an unexpectedly steep ballistic re-entry enduring a maximum of 8-9 G's gravitational deceleration loading force before landing some 260 miles (420 km) short of its intended landing zone on the Kazakhstan steppes. That parachute and retro fire landing actually started a fire at touchdown in the dry grass of the steeps that also engulfed the main parachute. This was the third time since May 2003 that a Soyuz-TM class spacecraft has returned on a ballistic trajectory as also did the Soyuz-TMA on October 21, 2007.

This suggest perhaps an in flight failure of the descent modules on board guidance Autopilot system. However with the additional information that came to light today it appears that the failure could be related to short circuited in cabling to the separation explosives as previously observed in the previous Soyuz-TMA failure but until that is established by the investigating Roscosmos (Russian Federal Space Agency) Commission it can not be known for certain. Perhaps only in the last day has the Soyuz-TMA-11 crew of Commander Yuri Malenchenko and Expedition-16 Commander Peggy Whitson along with Guest South Korean Cosmonaut So-yeon Yi realize just how dangerous and precarious that re-entry was to their survival.

Added to that is the apparent failure to properly separate the Soyuz-TMA crewed descent module from thr three section spacecraft rear Instrument Propulsion Module after retro fire completion. This was first experienced in the former Soviet Unions Soyuz-5 mission during January 1969 but was also repeated by the Soyuz-TM of October 2007 and now again the Soyuz-TMA-11 re-entry this April 19th, 2008. This failure to separate the module caused the descent module to face forward first instead of the normal rearward orientation for a clean proper lifting low G's re-entry. This caused the communication antenna and forward hatch to be heavily burned stopping all mission control communications with Soyuz and endangered the underlying parachute cables surrounding the nose hatch and the rear side parachute compartment hatch of the descent module. If the parachute cabling had been exposed and burned through from this orientation it could have ment certain death to the crew. The instrument propulsion module did later break free of the descent module allowing for a properly orientated re-entry to continue to the successful parachute landing of the bell shaped descent module. Soviet and Russian manned spacecraft module separation failures go back to the flights of Yuri Gagarin's the first human in space some forty seven years ago with his Vostok-1 and other subsequent missions. After all these years one would think the Russians would have engineered their way away from such failures.

What makes this so serious is the apparent trends of repeated failures of the same kind indicating serious life threatening quality control issues have apparently found their way into the present Soyuz-TMA production preparation program for international crew transportation to and from the ISS. Equally this brings into question the viability of the Soyuz-TMA 12 spacecraft presently docked to the ISS which may have to be replaced because of the uncertainties evident for the present crew's safe return later this year. There is Soviet history for the Russians to replace a Soyuz spacecraft through an unmanned launch if required.

Only time and a through investigation over the coming months will address these issues as the Russian Federal Space Agency, Commission has already started that task. Once the Commission has had its say then the American (NASA) space agency as well as the other ISS partners will have a look at it and comment on their policy considerations recommendations if any. There may be Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) issues preventing the NASA and other ISS partners from getting involved in the investigation with out being invited. The present crew on the ISS and its Soyuz-TMA-12 ACRV spacecraft are not immediate in danger but that could change later in the year depending on the Commissions results. Soyuz-TMA 12 was thoroughly inspected prior to launch and it past its ground test. This is why NASA along with the long successful Soyuz program historic record has expressed confidence in the Russian Federal Space Agencies ability to get at the issues and the reliability of Soyuz. What impact this will have on the crew change out logistics is unclear at present. Until these issues are cleaned up permanently as surely the Roscosmos (Russian Federal Space Agency) realizes the existing Soyuz-TMA spacecrafts viability as an Assured Crew Return Vehicle spacecraft is brought into serious question.