The Russians have established an investigation committee to look into the failure of a solar array to deploy during the most recent Soyuz manned launch.
They are also going to have the array inspected by Russian astronauts during a planned spacewalk in October. Still no word, however, on the capsule’s viability as a lifeboat for the next five months with one failed solar array.
Despite the failure of one solar array to deploy, a Soyuz capsule carrying three astronauts successfully docked with ISS today.
The solar array issue, still unresolved, needs to be figured out, as this Soyuz spacecraft must serve as one of ISS’s lifeboats for the next few months. Without that array the spacecraft will have limited power, and will definitely not be considered the best way home should something go wrong on the station.
One of the two solar panels on the manned Soyuz capsule transporting three astronauts to ISS has failed to deploy.
“According to our data, one of the solar panels is still unable to unfold for reasons unknown. But preliminary data suggest that it will not impede [the spacecraft] from docking to the ISS. They have carried out a maneuver just now which involved all of the spacecraft’s engines, all systems are running smoothly, the crew is OK,” the source in the agency said.
Because they are flying the fast route to ISS a shortage of power is not as critical. However, this failure once again indicates the increasing quality control problems faced by the Russian aerospace industry. In past decades these problems simply did not happen, especially on their manned missions. Now they are happening with increasing frequency.
A Soyuz rocket launched a new crew today, including the first Russian ISS astronaut.
They are also using the fast route to ISS, meaning they should dock within six hours.
To get an idea of why there have been no Russian females launched to ISS before this, see this article.
The next crew to ISS is scheduled to launch on a Soyuz spacecraft this afternoon at 4:25 (eastern), and what makes this flight interesting is that it includes a Russian female astronaut, the first to fly in twenty years.
In a somewhat unexpected development today, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin revealed today that Russia intends to spend $8.2 billion (321 billion rubles) on research and development at the International Space Station through 2025.
“The 2016-2025 draft of the target federal program provides for allocating 321 billion rubles for the ISS development and operation, including the creation of new modules for unmanned spacecraft,” Rogozin said during a visit to a cosmonaut training center. “Russia channels considerable funds into development of this area of Russian space science. We are now thinking of research projects designed to explore outer space, as well as new projects in manned cosmonautics,” Rogozin said.
Up until now the Russians have been unclear about what they intend to do at ISS. NASA had asked them to extend the partnership to 2024. Their initial response was almost hostile, with Rogozin even threatening to stop flying American astronauts to ISS on Russian Soyuz rockets/capsules. Now it appears that they have decided to up their participation with new modules and agree to the extension.
Moreover, Rogozin’s statement suggests they are going to take a more independent position when it comes to human research in space. Up until now, they have allowed NASA a veto on flying any long manned missions on ISS, which is why no yearlong expeditions prior to next year’s have taken place. NASA kept saying no. This report suggests that once we have our own methods for getting astronauts to ISS they are going to go their own way and begin flying their own long term missions to ISS. We will fly our astronauts there on our schedule, and they will fly their astronauts there on their schedule.
Should make for some interesting news stories, eh? Will Russian and American astronauts even be allowed in each other’s modules? I am reminded of stories of messy divorces where the couples still had to live in the same house.
The competition heats up: Jeff Bezos’s company Blue Origin has signed a contract with the United Launch Alliance to build a rocket engine for the Atlas 5 rocket so that it will no longer have to depend on Russian engines.
Neither executive [of either company] would discuss a dollar figure, although it’s likely somewhat less than $1 billion. Bruno said a typical liquid-fueled rocket engine takes seven years and $1 billion to develop, but Blue Origin is already several years along on the BE-4. Bruno said the engine could be ready within four years to serve as the main engine on the company’s Atlas V rockets.
This is excellent news, because it shows that ULA is being pro-active in solving this problem, rather then waiting for Congress to act.
Russia officials today repeated that they will continue to sell Russian rocket engines to American companies, despite the sanctions imposed on their country because of the Ukrainian situation.
Meanwhile, there’s this story about the budget squeeze in the U.S. that makes it difficult to produce an American-made engine for the Atlas 5 rocket.
The competition heats up: The head of Russia’s United Rocket and Space Corporation (URSC), which now controls that country’s entire space industry, said today that they intend to compete with SpaceX’s Falcon 9 much cheaper launch prices.
They intend to do it with both the Proton rocket as well as their new family of Angara rockets. The heavy version of Angara will allow them to compete with SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, and in fact might even put more payload into orbit for less.
In a statement today in the Russian press Vladimir Putin proposed initiating a criminal investigation into the management of the new Vostochny spaceport.
[Putin] admitted that “although the project is in the focus of our special attention, problems abound. … I will have to hand over some issues to law enforcement agencies to get them sorted out and clarified,” Putin said. Funding is provided regularly but the funding procedure itself needs special attention, he said, referring to “quasi and semi-criminal schemes”.
It appears that funds have not been used as efficiently as he likes and his solution is to threaten prosecution of those involved. This is becoming a standard Putin technique. He used it to guarantee his control over the Russian aerospace company Energia, and now he is using it here to guarantee the Vostochny project moves forward fast and efficiently.
Its use also illustrates the limitations of Russia’s top down approach to everything. Such threats can prevent corruption in a specific project, but that such treats are necessary so frequently points out how easily such corruption grows in a government-run centralized bureaucracy. We see it here in the U.S. as well. Take away the profit motive and private ownership and there remains nothing to naturally focus the efforts of management towards success and efficiency.
A Russian Soyuz spacecraft brought three astronauts back to Earth today without problems.
A decision by the Russians to possibly shift astronaut training back to a base in the Crimea, now under their control, could lock American astronauts from future Soyuz flights.
Shifting the survival training to Russian-occupied Crimea will require foreign cosmonauts to accept travel there without Ukrainian visas, an explicit acquiescence to the new diplomatic status of the province. Refusal to attend survival training is equivalent to failing the training, which by existing training regulations is an automatic disqualification for flight certification. No Crimea trip, no space trip.
The Russians have not yet made this shift official, so it is possible it will not become a problem. However, the article outlines many reasons why it makes good sense for the Russians to do it.
