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During its landing in April a manned Soyuz capsule became partially depressurized

During its landing in April a Soyuz capsule carrying three astronauts returning from ISS became partially depressurized at about five miles altitude.

The partial loss of pressure did not put the crew in jeopardy, Stafford said. A valve normally opens once the capsule descends to an altitude of five kilometers to allow outside air into the capsule. The crewmembers were also wearing pressure suits, as is standard procedure on Soyuz landings.

The incident occurred when a buckle from the parachute system hit a welding seam in the capsule as the parachute deployed.

There is a reason the Russians require astronauts to wear pressure suits while in a Soyuz capsule. During the return to Earth in 1971 of three cosmonauts from the first Russian space station, Salyut 1, the capsule depressurized and the three men died of suffocation.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

2 comments

  • LocalFluff

    “the parachute system hit a welding seam “
    Without any kind of expertise, this sounds like a bad cause of the incident. It’s not a defective valve, but the parachute that is hitting and destroying things, luckily not itself this time.

  • Dick Eagleson

    I don’t know how solid the info is but it has been said this incident occurred due to an incorrectly packed chute. If true, this suggests the Russians aren’t yet out of the woods anent space industry quality control and also that we were fortunate this incident wasn’t Komarov times three.

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