NASASpaceFlight.com Forum

International Space Flight (ESA, Russia, China and others) => Russian Launchers - Soyuz, Progress and Uncrewed => Topic started by: JJ.. on 03/29/2008 10:30 pm

Title: Progress experiment
Post by: JJ.. on 03/29/2008 10:30 pm

I've been watching an old "equinox" documentary from Channel 4 (UK) called "state of weightlesness" it was recorded back on 26th October, 95.

It's all about the Russian/Soviet manned space program and features a clip of a progress (?) deployable experiment.

I'm realy interested in what it was, as it was just an "off topic" inserted clip in an interview,

Here's a couple of grabs I've got of the deploy.

Title: RE: progress experiment ..
Post by: JJ.. on 03/29/2008 10:37 pm

you can see here how the progress gets totaly enveloped by the silver "balloon"

(hope its ok to post images)

thanks,
JJ..

Title: Re: progress experiment ..
Post by: nacnud on 03/29/2008 11:10 pm

It might be a Znamya space mirror experiment. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Znamya_(Space_Mirror)

More: http://www.triz-journal.com/archives/2002/06/e/index.htm

Title: RE: progress experiment ..
Post by: Nicolas PILLET on 03/30/2008 09:12 am

No, it's an inflatable baloon deployed from Progress M-8 on 16th august 1991.
The goal of the experiment was to test refmection on the baloon, but the deployment failed.

Title: RE: Progress experiment
Post by: JJ.. on 03/30/2008 08:45 pm

I noticed on one of the frames the balloon seemed to have burst as you could see "into" it,
thanks for the infomation il do a search,

I also remember the space mirror experiment
very exiting coverage on the news (UK) at the time  :)

JJ..

Title: RE: Progress experiment
Post by: anik on 03/31/2008 05:40 pm

The name of the experiment is Zond-2. Its purpose was the testing of methods of creation of thin-film inflatable constructions.

The experiment was spent after undocking of Progress M-8 cargo ship on August 15, 1991.

The cover of the container with sphere was separated from cargo ship at 22:23:30 UTC. The pressurization of a 10-meter sphere has begun. However, it has not accepted the set configuration. Its membrane has broken. The cargo ship was partially covered by it. The separation of the sphere has been executed at 22:27:00 UTC.