| Issue 12 | Volume 146 | Tuesday, December 6, 2016 | theavion.com |
Image Courtesy: Roscosmos
Resupply Mission to ISS Fails
Henry Neiberlier News Editor
What’s Inside
This past Thursday, a Russian Progress MS cargo spacecraft, an unmanned version of the Soyuz MS capsule, lifted off from Baikonur, Kazakhstan on what was supposed to be a routine mission to the International Space Station. Unfortunately, a little more than six minutes into the flight the Soyuz-U carrier rocket’s third stage separated too early dooming the spacecraft and its 2.4 tons of cargo to a fiery death during reentry. NASA and Roscosmos have stated that supplies aboard the ISS are at a “good level” and this failure will not have an effect on the normal operations of the space station’s crew. This failure has brought into question the safety of the Soyuz launch vehicle, as this is the second failure of the third stage in a Soyuz vehicle in two years. In April of 2015, a similar failure occurred when a Soyuz rocket carrying another Progress spacecraft failed and left the vehicle to disintegrate in the atmosphere.
Russia blamed this and the most recent failure on the Soyuz Rocket. Thankfully both of these incidences the rocket was unmanned, however, this same launch vehicle is the sole vehicle NASA and Roscosmos rely on to ferry Astronauts and Cosmonauts to and from the ISS. Roscosmos may ground the entire Soyuz fleet of launch vehicles to look into this problem, and this could disrupt future manned missions to the ISS. On Nov. 28, 2016, the Soyuz launch vehicle celebrated its 50th anniversary of its first launch. For business or marriage, a 50th anniversary is an amazing feat and should be celebrated. However, one questions if we should be relying on a rocket design that is over fifty years old to transport our astronauts safely. The Soyuz launch vehicle has gone through many different revisions and modernizations since its inception, but an early version of the spacecraft was responsible for multiple Soviet cosmonaut deaths, including three onboard the USSR’s first space station. The
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spacecraft itself has proven to be reliable in modern times, but the Soyuz family of launch vehicles reliability has been questioned. In fact, the most recent manned launch to the ISS, Expedition 50/51 was delayed several months on what was called “technical issues.” While the Soyuz vehicle is iconic, it has most definitely flown right past its expected retirement date. One could argue this was due to the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990's and the lack of funds for new vehicle development in Russia. Another factor could be the retirement of the space shuttle by NASA in 2011 leaving the USA reliant on the vehicle, as no American craft was ready as a replacement after the cancellation of the Constellation program. Russia and Roscosmos see the writing on the wall as well and are developing its first entirely new family of launch vehicles since the 1960s.The Angara rocket family, the first of which flew in 2014, will replace the Proton launch vehicles starting in 2021, and the smaller Angara A5 will
replace the Soyuz family at an unspecified point in the near future. As for a new manned spacecraft, Russia is developing its new Federation (formerly PPTS) capsule. The Federation capsule will be larger than the Soyuz, allowing for a capacity of up to six as opposed to the current maximum of three. The new vehicle has a design life of 5-14 days in orbit; a full year docked to a space station in earth orbit, and 200 days docked in lunar orbit. Russia plans to use the new spacecraft for manned missions to
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lunar orbit and the lunar surface. It is also designed to be reusable for up to ten missions over a fifteen-year lifespan, unlike the completely expendable Soyuz family of spacecraft. Future cosmonauts will also appreciate that thrusters will be incorporated into the new capsule to allow it soft land instead of high-G parachute opening and a short burst of propellant to slow the vehicle on touchdown like on the current Soyuz, which feels like a pickup truck rear-ending you at high speed right
before touchdown. RKK Energia, the Russian company developing the spacecraft has not given a specifically targeted time for a first flight or even preliminary testing; it can be assumed that the vehicle is still in the early stages of development. In the meantime, the tried and true antique that is the Soyuz will continue to fly our astronauts to the ISS until the SpaceX Dragon V2 and Boeing CST-100 Starliner spacecraft are ready for their first mission to the ISS in 2018.
Image Courtesy: NASA Soyuz (foreground) and Progress (Background) spacecraft docked to the Russian modules of the ISS.
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