Early on May 4, the Expedition Six crew returned from a five-and-a-half-month stay aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Ken Bowersox, Nikolai Budarin, and Don Pettit parachuted safely to Earth in the Soyuz TMA-1 capsule after an unexpectedly exciting reentry. The upgraded TMA-1 flew a steep, short ballistic trajectory, subjecting the crew to 8 or 9 gs, and landed some 460 km short of its target in Kazakhstan. The cause of the malfunction is being sought, but crewmembers—except for a few aches and bruises—appear in good shape. They were replaced at the ISS by the two-man team of Yuri Malenchenko (commander) and Ed Lu (flight engineer and science officer), who expect to stay aboard for six months and return on their own Soyuz, launched April 26.

Expedition Six spent 161 days in space, two months longer than originally planned. They were due to return to Earth in March, but the February 1 loss of the shuttle Columbia grounded the space shuttle fleet and forced their return via Soyuz. Just as Russia’s Sergei Krikalev returned home from Mir in 1992 to a country that had not existed when he left Earth, the returning astronauts must adjust to a human spaceflight landscape that has shifted beneath them. Radical change is in the works, and we should encourage it.

This post-landing scene shows the ground damage caused by the soft-landing thrusters of the Soyuz following its touchdown in Kazakhstan.

( small photo does not in fact show evidence of a soft landing )

Photo by Marty Linde.

While the steep, high-g descent surprised the crew (“That was scarier than landing on an aircraft carrier,” said Bower-sox), the Soyuz did, in fact, fulfill its intended role on the ISS as a backup return vehicle. Americans had not returned home under parachute in a reentry capsule since the 1975 détente-driven Apollo-Soyuz mission. This latest landing on the Kazakhstan steppes is further testament to the legacy of that ground-breaking mission 28 years ago.

…

http://www.aiaa.org/aerospace/Article.cfm?issuetocid=375&ArchiveIssueID=40

— Donald

That 2003 Soyuz mission did more than land off course.

Computer Glitch Eyed in Soyuz’s Wild Ride Home
By Marcia Dunn
AP Aerospace Writer
posted: 03:00 pm ET
06 May 2003

STAR CITY, Russia (AP) — A computer error is suspected of sending three spacemen on a wild ride home that was so steep and forceful their tongues rolled back in their mouths and they could hardly breathe.

Then antenna problems blocked their ability to announce a safe arrival, albeit one that was far short of the targeted touchdown site. Even so, the two astronauts and one cosmonaut who returned to Earth Sunday from the international space station were in good spirits Tuesday as they talked about their adventure.

American Donald Pettit, the sickest and weakest upon return, didn’t mind having a few more hours alone with his crewmates after 161 days together in orbit. He had been warned about the “mob scene” and “hustle and bustle” awaiting him in Kazakhstan, what with all the recovery helicopters.

“I was actually relieved to ooze out of the spacecraft and lay on Mother Earth and have a solitude moment in which to get reacquainted,” Pettit said, reflecting on his historic yet harrowing ride. They had landed nearly 300 miles off-course.

All three were crawling on their hands and knees the first hour and a half, said cosmonaut Nikolai Budarin, who popped open the hatch and was the first one out.

The transition from weightlessness to gravity was made all the more difficult by the steeper descent that subjected them to eight times the force of gravity. That’s twice the usual amount for a Soyuz and three times the load experienced aboard a shuttle.

“It was easier than I thought it was going to be, but there’s a lot of pressure on your chest,” space station commander Kenneth Bowersox said at a news conference. “It’s hard to breathe and your tongue sort of slips back in your head and toward the back of your throat.”

Pettit said, “For me, for a moment, it felt like I was Atlas and I had the weight of the whole world on my shoulders.”

A cosmonaut whose own Soyuz landing two years ago was steep but not ballistic, Talgat Musabayev, said Russian space experts believe the problem was caused by software in the guidance computer installed in the new model Soyuz. It was the first time the modified spaceship had been used in re-entry.

If software is the problem, it should be an easy repair and the two new residents of the space station should have nothing to fear when they ride a Soyuz capsule back to Earth this fall. Flight controllers would develop a software patch and simply beam it up.

NASA is relying on the Soyuz for as long as the shuttle fleet remains grounded in the wake of the Columbia disaster. A severe Soyuz problem could easily shut down the orbiting complex.

Budarin explained why no one heard from the crew during the final minutes of the descent and for two full hours afterward. Several parachute cords, including one with an antenna, ripped off during descent. Two other antennas did not open at touchdown, and one opened toward the ground.

The men tried to use the NASA radio station, but it was too weak, Budarin said. Then they pulled out another antenna and used it to communicate with the rescue airplane that finally found them. Between their frail condition and the need to keep crawling back into the capsule, “it all took time,” he said.

Bowersox and Pettit will spend another two weeks recuperating at the cosmonaut base in Star City, outside Moscow. Then they will fly home to Houston with their wives, who beamed with pride at the news conference.

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/exp6_home_030506.html

— Donald

Its record is no more reliable than the shuttle. 2% accidents, 2% fatalities for both vehicles.

It has survived Apollo, and is likely to survive the Shuttle.

If it does survive the shuttle, it will only be because the Russians fail to develop Kliper. They have widely advertised their desire to retire Soyuz and replace it with Kliper in 2010, the same year the shuttle is to be retired.

But 2 zero one 8 is too long to wait.

Dr. Griffin should have announced an earlier date, maybe 2010, even if thought it was unrealistic deep down inside.

2018? Who knows what the technological,economic, and political sitruation will be then? It’s too far ahead to know much.

Watch the tapes of the Apollo splashdowns, or talk to someone who has actually done search and rescue operations at sea. It’s not as easy as you think.

> I like the simple capsule idea myself. I don’t see why they need this CEV
> turkey. They could use the extra weight to start building a permanent
> facility on the Moon

This is the “simple capsule” back-to-Apollo has been asking for: a virtual clone of Apollo CSM. If it isn’t as simple, light, and cheap as fans have been claiming, then fans have only themselves to blame. The weight is pretty much what NASA expected all along. You guys just weren’t paying attention until now.

> I’m telling you, the CEV is large because even as proposed it will be hard
> to shoe horn those massive astro-egos in there and still get the door closed.

Er, yeah. Right. Whatever.

— Donald

Which is exactly why a carrier group is needed if you have a water landing. You have to be able to defend your expensive space hardware and its associated advanced technology. Or would you rather than any ship with a decent size loading crane – a North Korean ship for instance – that happened to be in the vicinity would pluck your capsule from the water?

(1) They also want to use the new crew capsule as an ISS lifeboat, and NASA has the attitude that a water landing would be inappropriate for the ISS lifeboat. One reason why is a water landing would delay getting sick or injured ISS crewpersons to hospital. Another reason is that it is felt that an ISS lifeboat should not require Navy or Coast Guard support, if possible.

(2) Water landings are not always safe. Gus Grissom nearly drowned exiting his Mercury capsule, which sank. Just a few years ago, a Soyuz
landed nearly 500 km off target. NASA wants more safety and accuracy than that.

(3) NASA dislikes the comparison of smooth, dignified Shuttle landings and airliner-style crew exits from the Shuttle to old-fashioned, monkeys-in-a-tub capsule landings. I share that subjective bias against capsule landings.

So, NASA wants to make the new capsule land within the property lines at Edwards, in as similar a manner to the Shuttle as possible.

(4) As Bill White said, Dr. Griffin also intends the new crew vehicle to ultimately become the Mars
descent and landing vehicle.

By the way, I suspect that the Russians fear that Muslim terrorists may try to harm Soyuz operations in Kazakhstan, which is only tenuously under control of the Moscow central government. A similar thought might apply to American capsules landing who knows where in mid-America.

Oh, and the Russians also want to build the Klipper lifting body spacecraft and launch from Kourou. If they do that, it will make the Apollo on steroids stuff seem even more old-fashioned.