The “Energy” Corporation has formed a panel enquiring the circumstances of the descent of Soyuz TMA-11. This has been the second successive case when the landing manned module passed the atmosphere in the free fall mode nearly down to the surface.

Reminding, when returning to the Earth the space module with the members of the 16th International Space Expedition on board – that’s the Russian Yuri Malenchenko, American Peggy Witson and Korean Li So Yon – shifted for ballistic landing mode instead of the automatic controllable mode. That resulted in landing with short fall of 420 km away from the planned point, 278 km to the east of the Kazakh city of Aktiubinsk. 

Actually, the ballistic landing mode – that means descent with a zero aerodynamic quality and using the parachute and brake motors – is also considered to be a non-emergency. The area for ballistic landing is different from the normal one, but it is also known before. Soyuz TMA-11 got to that area.   

Increased g forces are the main disadvantage of such a descent (the figure comes to 3-4 g, i.e. the cosmonaut’s weight increased with the fraction of 3-4). Even when getting trained the cosmonauts are subject to such a g force no more than 40 seconds.     

One of the developers and creators of Soyuz explained to a Novaya Gazeta correspondent that the system guarantees the safe descent of the module even with several simultaneous failures developed. It allows three different ways of landing and is calculated for g force coming up to 30g. But the problem is that the system that was created many years ago and was tested tens times has developed a failure for the second time successively.  

The reaction by officials to this descent situation is rather unexpected, trying to pretend nothing bad to have happened. People from mission control center called this descent mode to be non-emergency, but rare. Anatoly Perminov, the head of the Federal space agency, mentioned the old Russian tradition saying that presence of a women on a ship has always been considered a bad omen among Russian sailors (in this case there were two women on board) and thanked God that all ended well. The statement caused criticism by foreign TV stations and information agencies for discrimination of women. The spokesperson of Roskosmos, Alexander Vorobyov, did not even try to smooth the words spoken by his superior and said that the “cosmonauts are taking rest and are receiving a  medical treatment and you know that sleeping is the best medicine, especially sleeping with a beloved woman”. It seems the issue is rather topical for Roskosmos.       

Spokesperson of NASA in Russia Sergei Puzanov refused tactfully to give any comment to us saying that this is a purely Russian story. The head of the cosmonaut group Alexander Karelii reported that the landed crew is feeling well, and so everything is alright. Valery Lyndin, the spokesperson for Mission Control Center, admitted the fact the cosmonauts have experienced heavy g forces, but he said that the ballistic descent is not dangerous and it was the only possible solution for Gagarin’s Vostok’s descent.    

The comments by astronauts themselves were rather more reserved. Peggy Witson noted that the descent in Shuttle was endured easier by her than that in Soyuz. Giving interview to NASA she added that separation of Soyuz was more dramatic than she had expected. Yuri Malenchenko mentioned laconically “well, in fact we were not killed”.  

The fact that cosmonauts stayed alive «is just an excuse for the superiors by the employees from Roskosmos or ‘Energy’ Corporation” said an expert from Novaya Gazeta. “Next time it may end up not so well in case the cause of the failure is not fixed”.    

“One ballistic descent could be accidental, but two successive ones is a tendency” believes Igor Marinin, the editor of “Novosti Kosmonavtiki” (Cosmonautics News). “If this-time landing was similar to the previous one, then that-time panel either was mistaken in its conclusions, or the failures were impossible to be fixed on Soyuz TMA-11 that was already orbited. Unfortunately, our officials often try to call any emergency to be just an accident. In May 1996 the spacecraft developed a destruction of the head fairing on the 49th second after launching. The version was proposed that it had happened due to collision with a big bird. Everyone laughed, but a month later when there was another launch of Soyuz, same accident happened on the 49th second again. The following examination found the violation of the technology of gluing of the glass-plastic head fairing, which was not found during the first examination done”.  

Questions

There’s a lot of unclear in the case of Soyuz TMA-11. First, it’s either on-board computer or the crew who shifts to ballistic descent mode. According to Yuri Malenchenko, it was the automatic system to turn on. Fortunately, “human factor” term is not used negatively in too generalized way in astronautics and no one believes it could have been the crew’s fault. So what might have happened to the automatic devices?  

Second, all the period of descent and 30 minutes after landing there was no voice communication between the surface and the crew. Usually, the cosmonauts report about everything going on aboard and this time they did not even report about separation of the spacecraft modules.    

Third, a special reserve group must be on duty at the calculated area of the supposed ballistic descent. But it failed to track the landing point, which was caused with the absence of communication with the crew (according to Valery Lyndin). It turns out that either the anti-aircraft facilities were not used or they are in poor condition in Russia. The Mission Control Center is rumored that the coordinates were advised by the US defense ministry. However, according to Mr. Lyndin, Malenchenko made a call by satellite phone right after the landing and reported their coordinates taken with the use of the GPS receiver. The cosmonaut told at the press conference that the rescue helicopter appeared 40 minutes after and it was locals to find the module first. Unbelievably, the information of how the descent was going on was passed to the mission control center only after landing was over. Anatoly Perminov announced that “during the séance of communication the crew did not give any information about the ballistic descent”. Sorry, has there been any séance of communication?   

Versions

So three main questions remain: a) what happened to the automatics? b) what happened to the communication facilities? c) why the descent module was lost during the landing? 

Experts of Novaya Gazeta noted that the descent module got burnt over, including the hatch in its upper part. With a normal descent (controllable or ballistic one) the spacecraft is moving with its bottom ahead with the bottom being protected against heat with a special screen. The sides of the module are protected less and the upper side with the hatch is not protected at all. Judging from appearance, the module entered the atmosphere with its upper part going ahead. The least protected part got burnt immediately and the antennae got melted, which stopped any communication opportunity with the crew. Fortunately, the containers with the brake parachutes were not affected, otherwise the cosmonauts would have crashed into the surface with a speed of 100 mps like it happened to Vladimir Komarov in 1967. Besides, the hatch might have burnt through.

“When a cosmonaut is flying in the atmosphere back to front, he/she does not have much time to think about it” concluded our expert. “There has been only one case similar to this. It was in 1969 when Boris Volynov was descending in Soyuz-5: the instrument module did not separate from the descent module then and its unprotected part got to be in front and began to burn. Looks like this time the descent module took the right position only in the atmosphere, in accordance with its aerodynamic properties and calculated center of gravity”. 

Our expert believes that the descent module only could have capsized in case of wrong getting detached from the utility module and instrument module before entering the atmosphere. This version has not been voiced in Russia either this time or after the previous incident with Soyuz-10. But Bill Gerstenmeyer, the NASA director for space operations, reported confidently on the phone press conference that same problems with getting detached were developed in the previous flight too.     

So the question number one: what was the reason for shifting to ballistic mode? Was it similar to that at the previous Soyuz? Have there been any problems with getting detached? This is what the panel is to find out. If only the officials don’t try to explain everything with some defective cable, forgetting there is one more Soyuz-12 orbited and the current space crew is going to descend in it to the Earth in six months.  

Novaya Gazeta information

Ballistic descent of Soyuz has been the second in succession and the third in general for spacecrafts of the Soyuz series (11 having descended and the12th being in the orbit at the moment). The first ballistic descent was 4 May 2003 at the spacecraft of Nikolai Budarin.   

Then the investigative panel recognized “inadequate reaction by the descent control unit” to be the reason of shifting to ballistic mode and published its decision to “introduce new elements excluding repeating of hardly-probable, but still possible situation that occurred on Soyuz-1”.   

And last October the new ballistic descent took place: Soyuz TMA-10 with Russians Oleg Kotov and Fyodor Yurchihin and first Malaysian cosmonaut Sheikh Muszafar Shukor on board landed 346 km away from the calculated point. After a long-months working the investigative panel came to a conclusion that the cable was short-circuited that led to the button of shifting to ballistic mode. Allegedly, it’s through the fault by unknown electrician that the cosmonauts have had the experience of 8 g forces.