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The Russian Space Agency Roscosmos aired Oct. 11 footage of the almost catastrophic launch of a rocket that endangered the lives of NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin.
The video is spectacular, but it also proved the effectiveness of the Soyuz rocket emergency abandonment system – which propelled the crew capsule away from the damaged launcher – and finally allowed the crew of two people to parachute back to Earth.
The footage, captured by a camera attached to the side of the Soyuz, shows the rocket taking off from the brown soil of Kazakhstan and crossing the clouds. But just after the mark 1:22, things go wrong.
Specifically, four rocket boosters are intended to separate simultaneously from the rocket, then to dive to Earth. This did not happen in this case.
"What's clear is that one of the boosters did not separate like the others," said Brad King, director of the Space Systems Research Group at Michigan Technological University and chief executive officer. Orbion Space Systems.
"Once this failure has occurred, all the bets are open," said King. "I think I can say I'm happy not to be on board."
Although the problem of recall separation is obvious, it is difficult to see what happens next in the midst of chaos.
In a statement released Thursday by Roscosmos, the agency announced that the recall involved in the "abnormal separation" had subsequently hit the fuel tank of the rocket.
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"This resulted in its decompression and, as a result, the space rocket lost its attitude control," the agency wrote.
Once the separation has failed, things have clearly deteriorated. Yet, the rocket automatically detected a catastrophic failure and quickly interrupted the launch, thus moving the capsule away from the crew of the failed rocket.
"I am very impressed with the smooth operation of the automatic abandonment system," King said. "This could be the first demonstration of an automatic abandonment during a crew launch."
A Soyuz rocket under construction in January 2018. The four attached boosters are at the bottom.
Picture: roscosmos
"I think Russia is justified in its pride of this [abort] system, "added King.
Roscosmos said that a slightly bent pin – a little over 6 degrees – had finally caused an abnormal separation of the rocket.
However, questions remain about Roscosmos' determination in identifying the near-fatal problem.
This is of paramount importance, as the Soyuz rockets are the only space launch systems currently capable of sending astronauts and cosmonauts to the International Space Station – although SpaceX and Boeing both plan to launch their flights in the near future. crew from 2019.
"That's really the most important question: were they [Roscosmos] managed to determine the cause? asked King.
For the moment, Roscosmos has only shown images of what has not worked – not why.
"I'd love to find out how they discovered that the pin was crooked," King said. "It would be nice to see the evidence supporting this statement visually and through documents."
"The next step is to show their work."
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