Implications of Soyuz MS-10 launch failure on ISS, crew rotation,Commercial Crew

[bad_astra]

Apparently the official, NASA answer is none.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said he believes launches of crewed Soyuz spacecraft will resume “on schedule” after last week’s launch failure, avoiding the possibility of leaving the International Space Station without a crew.

If it were an American vehicle, they wouldn't be rubber stamping before the cause of failure was even know. Why does putting Americans on a Soyuz get that kind of pass?

Because Soyuz is currently the only way to get US astronauts to and from the station.

That's not good enough

[SWGlassPit]

Apparently the official, NASA answer is none.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said he believes launches of crewed Soyuz spacecraft will resume “on schedule” after last week’s launch failure, avoiding the possibility of leaving the International Space Station without a crew.

If it were an American vehicle, they wouldn't be rubber stamping before the cause of failure was even know. Why does putting Americans on a Soyuz get that kind of pass?

Because Soyuz is currently the only way to get US astronauts to and from the station.

That's not good enough

It's either that or decrew station.  Roscosmos doesn't operate the way NASA does, and NASA doesn't operate the Soyuz.  There's no such thing as good enough in these cases -- there is just what there is.

[ncb1397]

Apparently the official, NASA answer is none.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said he believes launches of crewed Soyuz spacecraft will resume “on schedule” after last week’s launch failure, avoiding the possibility of leaving the International Space Station without a crew.

If it were an American vehicle, they wouldn't be rubber stamping before the cause of failure was even know. Why does putting Americans on a Soyuz get that kind of pass?

1.)The likely cause is known as far as public information goes.
2.)Only LOC has a really detrimental impact on schedule. 9 months after Apollo 13, they were back at it again with Apollo 14 which was an approximately normal schedule as far as Apollo went. The Apollo 15/Apollo 16 gap was also 9 months. Apollo 16/17 gap was 8 months.

[woods170]

Apparently the official, NASA answer is none.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said he believes launches of crewed Soyuz spacecraft will resume “on schedule” after last week’s launch failure, avoiding the possibility of leaving the International Space Station without a crew.

If it were an American vehicle, they wouldn't be rubber stamping before the cause of failure was even know. Why does putting Americans on a Soyuz get that kind of pass?

Because Soyuz is currently the only way to get US astronauts to and from the station.

That's not good enough

By who's standards?

Remember: the Soyuz rocket is a Russian vehicle and is operated by Russia. NASA has no say in how and when the launcher returns to flight. NASA is allowed to observe, and even take part in, the incident investigation. However, the decision to return to flight is one taken entirely by Russian entities.

Should NASA decide that the Soyuz rocket is returned to flight prematurely there is only one thing NASA can do about it: refuse to fly their astronauts on it.

Not that such action will impress the Russians very much. After all, currently there is no flying alternative to Soyuz and abandoning the ISS until CCP comes online is not an option NASA is even remotely willing to consider.

[Alexphysics]

Not only those reasons multiple people said but also Roscosmos works different than NASA. They already have tracked down the possible issue and are testing it and doing experiments to confirm that was the cause of the failiure. NASA would still be stablishing an investigation board if it were an American vehicle, russians did it right after the incident happened. The way both agencies operate and work is much different and NASA usually takes a lot of time for these things and we're used to that and we now look at russia's plans for the return to flight and it doesn't seem right. Also, they have launched these rockets literally thousands of times, they know them very well so any failiure is rapidly tracked down so it's easy and faster to later test it and implement changes and return to flight quickly.

[Mondagun]

Not only those reasons multiple people said but also Roscosmos works different than NASA. They already have tracked down the possible issue and are testing it and doing experiments to confirm that was the cause of the failiure. NASA would still be stablishing an investigation board if it were an American vehicle, russians did it right after the incident happened. The way both agencies operate and work is much different and NASA usually takes a lot of time for these things and we're used to that and we now look at russia's plans for the return to flight and it doesn't seem right. Also, they have launched these rockets literally thousands of times, they know them very well so any failiure is rapidly tracked down so it's easy and faster to later test it and implement changes and return to flight quickly.

I would dispute the assertion that NASA would still be establishing an investigation board more than a week after a crew launch accident. The Columbia Accident Investigation Board was established within hours after Columbia's demise. That detail aside, I do agree with your conclusions.

[Paul Howard]

The launch of the military satellite appears to have gone well on Soyuz!

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2018/10/russia-soyuz-flight-lotos-s1-mission/