Author Topic: MISSION FAILURE: Progress M-27M launch – Soyuz-2-1A - April 28, 2015  (Read 497139 times)

Offline woods170

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Coverup of Mars-96 impact on Bolivia
http://www.jamesoberg.com/plutonium.html

I find fault with this piece of text of the above linked article:

Quote from: James Oberg
Since Mars-96 carried four probes designed to enter the Martian atmosphere, they would almost certainly have survived entry into Earth's atmosphere.

The amounts of energy unleashed on a spacecraft on reentry from the Mars 96 final orbit are up to five times larger than those unleashed on a spacecraft on direct entry into the Martian atmosphere after interplanetary flight. Reason: Earths much denser atmosphere.
Suggesting that the probes survived Earth entry because they were designed for Mars entry is a shaky statement at best.

Offline speedevil

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The amounts of energy unleashed on a spacecraft on reentry from the Mars 96 final orbit are up to five times larger than those unleashed on a spacecraft on direct entry into the Martian atmosphere after interplanetary flight. Reason: Earths much denser atmosphere.
Suggesting that the probes survived Earth entry because they were designed for Mars entry is a shaky statement at best.

'Earths denser atmosphere' is at best a shortcut.

If you take two earths, one with 1% atmosphere of the first, then the reentry - up until the point at which it impacts - is identical.

Mars and the earths atmosphere differs by scale height - mars is about 10km, earth about 6.
What this means is that due to the higher gravity (counteracted somewhat by CO2 being heavy) - the earths atmosphere profile is squashed compared to a martian atmosphere a little under twice.

For any given initial trajectory, the density ramps up about twice as fast, meaning decelleration will be about twice as fast, and heating will be about twice.

But, exact trajectory can make much more difference than this, as can if the trajectory is purely ballistic, or is an aerodynamically lifted one.
Then there is the obvious issue that a RV designed to reenter when prepared may not do so well if still bolted to its carrier.

Offline Prober

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Getting back on topic.  How are we doing with the orbital decay?

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Offline Rocket Science

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Getting back on topic.  How are we doing with the orbital decay?
The Laws of Physics are working on it... ;D
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Offline AncientU

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Interesting quote from Rogozin today:

"So far, no one has any theories as to what happened," he added. "I am meeting with designers today. The situation is so unusual that specialists have so far been unable to determine any causes," Rogozin said

If this is true (ahem... consider the source), then making the argument that the next crew launch is good-to-go is impossible.  Too many common systems that could be at fault.  Continuing with a few Progress launches to increase confidence that this was a one-off failure would help, but still might not be sufficient.

Who makes this call?  I'd assume NASA for NASA astros.
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Offline A12

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http://russianspaceweb.com/progress-m27m.html

Quote

Failure investigation

From the beginning, the investigation into the Progress M-27M failure focused solely on three final seconds in the operation of the Soyuz-2-1a launch vehicle and the separation of the spacecraft. It looked like a delayed command to cutoff the engine of the rocket's third stage held the key to the mystery. The following timeline of those critical moments had emerged by May 1:

Milestone
Actual
Nominal (planned)
Note
Spacecraft separation readiness command
526.26 seconds
?
-
Stage III engine cutoff command, GK-3
526.32 seconds
524.97 seconds
1.35 seconds late
Stage III engine cutoff begins
526.51 seconds
?
-
Loss of telemetry system No. 1
526.67 seconds
N/A
-
Loss of telemetry system No. 2
526.73 seconds
N/A
-
Spacecraft separation
?
528.27 seconds
-
Source: Novosti Kosmonavtiki


Offline JimO

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Interesting quote from Rogozin today:

"So far, no one has any theories as to what happened," he added. "I am meeting with designers today. The situation is so unusual that specialists have so far been unable to determine any causes," Rogozin said

If this is true (ahem... consider the source), then making the argument that the next crew launch is good-to-go is impossible.  Too many common systems that could be at fault.  Continuing with a few Progress launches to increase confidence that this was a one-off failure would help, but still might not be sufficient.

Who makes this call?  I'd assume NASA for NASA astros.


I'm on the same page with you.

officials are saying they really haven't come up with ANY theories about what went wrong.

no clue about what could have caused it.

But they still intend to press ahead with launches that share commonality with this one.

in my books that's criminal negligence.

but you guys know I've always hypered myself into frenzies over this sort of thing!

Online DaveS

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Well, it has been only three days and two of them was spent trying to salvage the mission.
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Offline Galactic Penguin SST


http://russianspaceweb.com/progress-m27m.html

Quote

Failure investigation

From the beginning, the investigation into the Progress M-27M failure focused solely on three final seconds in the operation of the Soyuz-2-1a launch vehicle and the separation of the spacecraft. It looked like a delayed command to cutoff the engine of the rocket's third stage held the key to the mystery. The following timeline of those critical moments had emerged by May 1:

Milestone
Actual
Nominal (planned)
Note
Spacecraft separation readiness command
526.26 seconds
?
-
Stage III engine cutoff command, GK-3
526.32 seconds
524.97 seconds
1.35 seconds late
Stage III engine cutoff begins
526.51 seconds
?
-
Loss of telemetry system No. 1
526.67 seconds
N/A
-
Loss of telemetry system No. 2
526.73 seconds
N/A
-
Spacecraft separation
?
528.27 seconds
-
Source: Novosti Kosmonavtiki


Well, well this is suggestive - how does the Soyuz-2 determine the time of shut down? I presume this is velocity dependent like every other launcher out there?

Also strange is that telemetry was lost at the moment of engine shutdown, within half a second of it. Must be something violent at shutdown to take out comms from the 3rd stage AND the spacecraft, no?
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Offline Jester

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T.S. Kelso ‏@TSKelso:

6 more pieces of debris from PROGRESS launch. JSpOC has identified all debris as from the rocket body. 13 pieces have reentered, so far.

  Latest decay estimate on Space Track for PROGRESS-M 27M shows May 9 at 17:33:00 UTC +/-10 hours.
« Last Edit: 05/01/2015 04:40 pm by Jester »

Offline edkyle99

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Could RD-0110 have run to propellant starvation and suffered a bad shutdown as a result?

 - Ed Kyle
« Last Edit: 05/01/2015 04:33 pm by edkyle99 »

Online Chris Bergin

Article on state of play. I avoided some of the things mentioned in here, as there's a thin line between speculation and fact and mainly used what we know and some L2 info and images:

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/05/stricken-progress-m-27m-spotted-iss-entry-evaluation/

Lots of experts on here, so if any of the above could use a refinement, fire a PM at me.
« Last Edit: 05/01/2015 05:00 pm by Chris Bergin »
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Offline Galactic Penguin SST

Could RD-0110 have run to propellant starvation and suffered a bad shutdown as a result?

 - Ed Kyle

Were there similar accidents that happened before (at least on the "Western launchers" where details are more clear)?
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Offline Stan Black

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Could RD-0110 have run to propellant starvation and suffered a bad shutdown as a result?

 - Ed Kyle

Were there similar accidents that happened before (at least on the "Western launchers" where details are more clear)?

Salyut-2?

Online mn

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Could RD-0110 have run to propellant starvation and suffered a bad shutdown as a result?

 - Ed Kyle

Wouldn't that suggest that under nominal conditions the upper stage has only 1.5 seconds of fuel margin. Is that 'nominal'? (not trying to imply anything, just asking because I have no idea one way or another)

Offline Thomas Dorman

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Just want to know what is thoughts about the possibility that the upper stage may have rear ended or bumped the Progress space just after separation? Looking at diagrams of the Progress spacecraft several different components of the propulsion system, thruster, tanks, etc. are located in the very rear of the spacecraft which would have been facing the upper stage. If here had been a bump of the rocket body against these components seems it could explain why the propulsion systems was unable to pressurize.
In addition could such a bump or collision account for the communication failures that took place that such impact could have inflicted shock stresses on parts of the communication and electrical systems? There is a least one antenna that is located on the rear of the spacecraft.
Also could some one comment on what they think that my have caused the debris field (44 fragments observed by Space Command) near the spacecraft.
Regards

Online saliva_sweet

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Could RD-0110 have run to propellant starvation and suffered a bad shutdown as a result?

 - Ed Kyle

Wouldn't that suggest that under nominal conditions the upper stage has only 1.5 seconds of fuel margin. Is that 'nominal'? (not trying to imply anything, just asking because I have no idea one way or another)

There were some reports the engine may have been going at abnormally high power through the flight. Combine that with delayed shutdown and a hard shutdown appears plausible.

Offline JimO

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Could RD-0110 have run to propellant starvation and suffered a bad shutdown as a result?

This is the nightmare scenario for any bi-prop system, where one prop stops feeding [several causes] while the other continues. It's why you have low-level sensors for the SSMEs. Ox-rich burn can be 'energetic' very rapidly.

Offline baldusi

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Could RD-0110 have run to propellant starvation and suffered a bad shutdown as a result?

This is the nightmare scenario for any bi-prop system, where one prop stops feeding [several causes] while the other continues. It's why you have low-level sensors for the SSMEs. Ox-rich burn can be 'energetic' very rapidly.
RD-0110 is a gas generator with just 1000psi of Pc. It would be less energetic than the Falcon 9/CRS-1 anomaly. Besides, it could have staved the oxidizer rather than the fuel, which would actually starve the ignition. The KbKhA did stated that the engine was run over spec. I'm suspecting an excess of oxidizer could have caused that, by increasing the O/F and thus running closed to stoicometric.
It still doesn't explains why the Progress ended up the way it did. I just haven't been able to get any speculation that covers the whole set of data that we have.

Offline gonucelar

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Here is some info (in Russian) from a guy who apparently worked at the mission control. Here is my translation:

Plain facts about the Progress M-27M spacecraft

1. Telemetry both from the launch vehicle and from the Progress spacecraft stopped 3 seconds before the spacecraft separation.

2. According to ground observations, Progress did separate from the the launch vehicle.

3. According to the sporadic telemetry received, two antennas didn't deploy and the onboard computer crashed. A decision to switch from the 4-orbit approach and docking maneuver to the traditional 2-day scheme was made.

4. According to "radio monitoring" of the orbit, the apogee was 40km higher than planned.

5. Launch vehicle experts from the Samara plant [which produces Soyuz rockets] reported to the investigative body that the orbital insertion was nominal and that the radio equipment used to determine the orbit parameters was faulty.

6. After the 2nd orbit, these launch vehicle experts admitted that they couldn't confirm the spacecraft separation due to the lack of telemetry, and the orbital data they reported earlier were based on the planned insertion orbit and not on actual spacecraft data.

7. After switching on the TV transmitter, it was determined that the Progress rotates at about 1 revolution per 3 seconds. This explains the sporadic telemetry reception.

8. NORAD detected a cloud of 44 fragments between the 3rd stage and the spacecraft.

9. The next day, an attempt was made to stop the spacecraft rotation. It wasn't successful - despite the fact that spacecraft thrusters did work. Experts came to the conclusion that fuel lines were damaged. [working thrusters with damaged fuel lines looks like a contradiction to me, but this is what the text says]

10. Switching the spacecraft to manual control was deemed pointless.

11. Another attempt to stop the rotation using  "another collector" [a backup set of thrusters?]  was unsuccessful.

12. The spacecraft is officially considered uncontrollable. The orbit is being monitored.

13. An uncontrolled reentry is expected between May 5 and 8.

14. That's the whole facts for now.

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