Tag: Soyuz

The Russians now say the next manned flight to ISS will be delayed a month, until the end of April, due to defects found in the Soyuz capsule.

7:01 pm

The Russians now say the next manned flight to ISS will be delayed a month, until the end of April, due to defects found in the Soyuz capsule.

The story suggests some confusion over what caused the cracks, either defects to the capsule itself or a mistake in the testing process.

A commission set up to probe the setback said violations of the testing procedure caused the damage to the reentry vehicle incident, earlier reports said. Either excessive pressure was applied by the personnel, or the shell of the reentry vehicle had defects or was improperly welded up.

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“This re-entry capsule now cannot be used for manned spaceflight.”

4:34 pm

“This re-entry capsule now cannot be used for manned spaceflight.”

This postponement of the next two Russian manned missions to ISS looks like a serious problem. For cracks to form in a finished capsule when tested under pressure suggests significant production failures that had gone unnoticed during assembly. In fact, this problem is far more serious than the launch failure that occurred last year. The Russians have to not only find a capsule they can trust to use on the next flight, they have to track down the errors that allowed a capsule to be built that is so obviously flawed it cracked when put in use.

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It looks like there will be no manned Soyuz missions launched from South America.

6:52 pm

It looks like there will be no manned Soyuz missions launched from South America.

An ESA study conducted between 2002 and 2004 found that because the Soyuz has not been designed to land in the sea, a French Guiana launch that had to be aborted would endanger the spacecraft and its crew as it would likely have to ditch in the Atlantic Ocean. The Soyuz spacecraft have always landed on land in the former Soviet territory of Kazakhstan.

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ArianeSpace will make a profit in 2011, the first time in three years

1:15 pm

ArianeSpace will make a profit in 2011, the first time in three years.

Helped by the two Soyuz campaigns, which occurred in October and December, Arianespace in 2011 apparently averted a third consecutive year of losses. Its financial accounts are not finalized until June, but Le Gall said the company expects to report a slight profit on about 985 million euros in revenue.

In other words, it was the addition of the Russian low-cost Soyuz rocket to their fleet that helped avoid another year’s loss. This doesn’t reflect well on the profitability of the Ariane 5 rocket.

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Some suggestions for keeping ISS occupied

9:06 am

Some suggestions for keeping ISS occupied.

I especially like Harman’s suggestion that the Russians consider landing in the U.S. during the winter, thereby allowing them to extend one crew’s occupancy of ISS into December, January, or even February. Also, he proposes the Russians send an unmanned Soyuz to ISS during testing of the rocket, thereby providing the crews onboard a fresh lifeboat. This is something they have done in the past on their previous space station Mir.

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