NASA head Jim Brandstein said at a press conference in Baikonur a few hours after the event: the training paid off
Astronaut Michael Hague and cosmonaut Alexei Ovechinin experience tremors during the emergency landing in Kazakhstan after a launch malfunction. A screenshot from NASA television of a Soyuz spacecraft with two crew members making an emergency landing in Kazakhstan after a launcher malfunction. The two were rescued safely. Search and rescue teams from NASA and the Russian Space Agency went to the landing site - 500 kilometers northeast of the launch site near the city of Dzhekazgan in Kazakhstan. Mike Haig and Alexey Ov'tsynin got out of the capsule on their own and were reported to be in good condition. They were transferred to a hospital in Baikonur for tests, but even before that, from photographs on the NASA website, the two appear to be healthy. They are supposed to move on to the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in the City of Stars, near Moscow in Russia.
The two astronauts were supposed to join the three astronauts currently on the space station. Soyuz is currently the only means of transportation between Earth and the space station. In fact, the US pays Russia for seats in Soyuz spacecraft, and its people are present at the launches.
In August of this year, a malfunction was discovered in one of the Soyuz cabins that was connected to the International Space Station and the astronauts had to perform spacewalks to patch the hole. In some reports it was stated that the concern is that this is damage caused on the ground. Therefore it can be assumed that the Russians will also check a connection in the current case. However, both the previous incident and the one that took place today ended with no casualties in the meantime.
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine and NASA staff are closely monitoring the situation. At a press conference in Baikonur hours after the incident, Brindstein said that NASA is working closely with the Russian space agency to ensure the safe return of the crew members. "Crew safety is NASA's top priority. An in-depth investigation of the cause of the incident will be carried out." Brindstein praised the perfect action of the crew members and the personnel of the Russian Space Agency and NASA on the ground who responded professionally.
In the photos from one of the cameras recording what is happening inside the Soyuz cabin, the two are seen shaking badly. The launch itself started smoothly, but about ninety seconds later, an exchange of transmissions began between the control room and the astronauts, during which it became clear that a problem had occurred when separating the first and second stages of the launcher.
A short time later, NASA said that the two made a "ballistic landing: that is, their capsule came down at a much higher angle than usual, and therefore the two suffered from high G-forces due to the rapid acceleration. The capsule separated from the failed launcher and then deployed parachutes to slow the descent.
Soyuz is one of the oldest rocket designs, but also one of the safest. The malfunction occurred during the coordination phase where the subsequent stages of the rocket continue to ascend while the empty fuel tanks are discarded.
The astronauts inside the spacecraft were well aware that something was not right because they reported a sense of weightlessness when they should have felt a push pulling them into their seats. The escape systems are tested and prepared for exactly this type of case. The astronauts also undergo training for various malfunction scenarios, including one that would cause a cold emergency landing after launch.
Since the retirement of the space shuttles in 2011, the US has depended on Russia to send its astronauts to the space station. The private spacecrafts of Boeing and SpaceX are supposed to restore the American launch capability, but their first launches are not expected to take place until next year at the earliest.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov said that no new manned missions will be launched "until we believe that the situation is completely safe". He rejected the claims that the sanctions and trade restrictions imposed by the US on Russia were somehow related to the incident. But he added that the one affected by this is the high-tech industry and that the space agencies work in close cooperation.
The current incident is considered the first launch failure of Soyuz launchers since 1983. Even then, a failure occurred shortly after launch, the crew compartment ejected and the cosmonauts landed safely.
However since 2010 Russia has faced 13 technical failures.
Among the most prominent are the crash of a supply spacecraft that was on its way to the space station, the loss of the upper stage of a Soyuz rocket with a large satellite and 18 small satellites on it in 2017 and earlier that year, it was reported that 73 satellites were damaged and even disabled upon their arrival in space after separation from the final stage of The Soyuz launcher.
And as mentioned in August, a hole appeared in the Soyuz capsule that was already anchored to the ISS, which caused the loss of air pressure for a short time and it was necessary to jettison it. Fortunately the hole is in a section of the Soyuz spacecraft that will not be used to carry astronauts back to Earth. The possibility of a meteorite impact or space debris was ruled out because it was clearly seen that these were holes that had been drilled.
Somewhat reminiscent of Apollo 13
Fortunately, today it can be said that the astronauts were saved from disaster thanks to the resourcefulness, training and hard work of the ground crews of both space agencies. A famous event of this kind in the past was the Apollo 13 spacecraft in 1970. from the diffusion acid tank two days after the launch, caused the loss of the power generation capacity on the spaceship. The crew had to make repairs in space, and managed to return to Earth six days later. Although the comparison is not entirely perfect because the Apollo 13 event took place at the beginning of the space age, while today the training prepares the astronauts for such an event. The astronauts today were not required (and could not under the circumstances of the event) to make any repairs, but let the automatic systems do their job.
And as I recall there were also disasters that took a toll on the soul
- 2003: Seven astronauts were killed when the Space Shuttle ColombiaDisintegrated upon reentry into Earth's atmosphere due to a damaged shield tile that fell from a sensitive area on the shuttle's wing.
- 1986: Seven astronauts were killed when the Space Shuttle ChallengerDisintegrated during launch and after investigation it turned out that damaged rubber rings on the launcher caused the failure.
- 1971: Three crew members of the spacecraft Soyuz 11Asphyxiated due to an air leak after leaving the Soliot 1 space station. They were found dead inside the capsule after landing.
- 1967: One cosmonaut was killed when the spacecraft parachuted Soyuz 1, designed to slow the descent, got tangled during re-entry into the atmosphere.
- 1967: Three crew members of Apollo 1Died when their command module caught fire on the launch pad.
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