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?
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
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.