The astronauts who returned to Earth from ISS on September 10 were flying blind.
Another Russian space glitch: The astronauts who returned to Earth from ISS on September 10 were flying blind.
The altitude sensors apparently failed soon after undocking. Since the Soyuz craft is not piloted but returns to Earth automatically, this failure was not crucial. That it happened, however, sends another worrisome signal about declining Russian quality control standards. If this system failed, why couldn’t another more crucial one fail as well?
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Another Russian space glitch: The astronauts who returned to Earth from ISS on September 10 were flying blind.
The altitude sensors apparently failed soon after undocking. Since the Soyuz craft is not piloted but returns to Earth automatically, this failure was not crucial. That it happened, however, sends another worrisome signal about declining Russian quality control standards. If this system failed, why couldn’t another more crucial one fail as well?
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 print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. 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
Yeah, that had to be loads of fun.
One wonders what next will fail on the increasingly comical and unrelyable Soyuz – our only taxi to our spacestation until its nearly finished.
“”The bottom line is, the Soyuz performed as it was expected to,”
So, sensor failures are an expected flight condition? I understand the point: the descent was otherwise nominal; no harm, no foul. But as you point out, what else might go wrong? A question I’m sure was uppermost in the crew’s minds.
The real bummer is that this wouldn’t have been a concern if they Russians didn’t have a quality control problem with other significant hardware. It would have just been a minor bug that needed to be fixed. Instead it has become something that we all worry about, because we don’t know whether it is an isolated problem or is symptomatic of the larger quality control issue.
Perhaps we are overly sensitive right now to such problems, but we should at least be sensitive to them. As I tell my friends and family, it’s not like driving a car; if it stops working, you can’t just pull over and call for a tow. Airplanes are almost as bad, but with airplanes there is a better chance of successfully putting down in some farmer’s field.
“No harm, no foul.” Well … yes, there was a foul. It just didn’t interfere with scoring the point.