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ISS managers adjust flight manifest following Progress launch failure by Chris Bergin on 01 Sep, 2011 01:35
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A very meaty overview by Pete Harding:
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2011/08/iss-managers-flight-manifest-following-progress-failure/ -
#1 by TerryNaylor on 01 Sep, 2011 02:49
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Excellent article Pete. Very comprehensive!
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#2 by Galactic Penguin SST on 01 Sep, 2011 05:47
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Interestingly, the commercial Soyuz-2 launches marketed by Arianespace/Starsem have been omitted in the "return to flight plan". According to the latest schedule, the next Globalstar-2 launch from Baikonur will be on Ocober 8, and the inaugural Soyuz launch from Kourou will take place on October 20. I wonder if the Russian space agency will take a look at these launches and accept them as "test flights", or would they only accept government flights (which would explain the RTF plan of launching the GLONASS-M and the Progress ahead of the next manned flight)?
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#3 by anik on 01 Sep, 2011 09:59
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I wonder if the Russian space agency will take a look at these launches and accept them as "test flights"?
We will accept Globalstar-2 and Progress M-13M as "test launches", because Soyuz-ST-A and Soyuz-U rockets have RD-0110 engine on their third stage. -
#4 by AnimatorRob on 01 Sep, 2011 14:34
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Given the restrictions on Soyuz landing opportunities, have the Russians ever looked into alternate landing zones?
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#5 by Robotbeat on 01 Sep, 2011 16:51
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Given the restrictions on Soyuz landing opportunities, have the Russians ever looked into alternate landing zones?
Good question.
It seems to me that the situation we find ourselves in is the result of multiple safety constraints working together.
Progress failed, and because the rockets are similar, the conservative thing to do is to ground all Soyuz spacecraft until the problem is found and corrected and two unmanned Soyuz rockets are launched.
The conservative thing is to make sure there is always enough Soyuz seats docked at ISS for everyone on ISS, just in case ISS has a problem (or a crew member becomes sick) and they need to leave.
But Soyuz has an on-orbit lifetime limit of ~200 days and US astronauts are not capable of the year-long expedition the cosmonauts are capable of (that's supposed to be a friendly jab at US flight surgeons
), so the conservative thing is to leave ISS relatively soon.
But the situation is made even worse, since the conservative thing to do is to wait until daylight for the Soyuz to land, to make recovery easier, and orbital mechanics makes that difficult to do the longer they wait.
Not only that, but if they wait until orbital phasing allows daylight landing, they will land on snowy steppe, and so the conservative thing to do would be to not land there.
I'm not saying that any one of these are poor decisions, but it is an example of compound conservatism making the whole thing very marginal. It could have been avoided in many ways, including having completed OSP a while ago, making sure at least a US CRV is available, learn to allow US astronauts to stay for year-long expeditions in a pinch, qualify Soyuz for longer on-orbit lifetime, develop a way to safely recover Soyuz even in the dark, perhaps have enough delta-v capability to allow more aggressive orbital phasing to land during daylight, and perhaps find a way to land Soyuz in a place other than Kazakhstan.
It's still not likely that ISS will be uncrewed. Just kind of weird that we're in this situation. -
#6 by demorcef on 01 Sep, 2011 17:16
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Given the restrictions on Soyuz landing opportunities, have the Russians ever looked into alternate landing zones?
Why can't the Soyuz land in somewhere else in a pinch like Montana or Saskatchewan where there is plenty of flat land and the latitude is the same as Russia? -
#7 by kch on 01 Sep, 2011 17:33
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Given the restrictions on Soyuz landing opportunities, have the Russians ever looked into alternate landing zones?
Why can't the Soyuz land in somewhere else in a pinch like Montana or Saskatchewan where there is plenty of flat land and the latitude is the same as Russia?
Montana and Saskatchewan are both Northern Hemisphere, so you still would have winter weather to deal with on landing. Something in the Southern Hemisphere would work (it's summer there when it's winter here) ... Australia, perhaps? -
#8 by CitabriaFlyer on 01 Sep, 2011 17:54
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1) Australia might be an option. Also what about White Sands or somewhere else in the Southwest US? Edwards? Nellis? etc.
2) Would it not be be prudent to think about getting ET-94 flight ready and just doing some contingency planning for an STS-136 next summer as a backup to Souyz and commercial cargo? I understand ET-94 is heavier. Could we still get a reasonable amount of supplies? What makes more sense MPLM or SpaceHab? -
#9 by Robotbeat on 01 Sep, 2011 18:01
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1) Australia might be an option. Also what about White Sands or somewhere else in the Southwest US? Edwards? Nellis? etc.
It'd be almost useless as a replacement for Soyuz, except for brief expeditions to ISS in order to make sure everything is in working order. You need Soyuzes for lifeboats, and they have a limited lifetime on-orbit. You could theoretically launch unmanned Soyuzes, but what would be the point? At that point, the problem that lead to the grounding of Soyuz would have LONG been taken care of. Besides, if you were going to go that route, you could just launch an unmanned Soyuz and have some of the ISS crew stay up there for a year total (might have to be Russian, since US flight surgeons don't like long-duration). It really doesn't make any sense.
2) Would it not be be prudent to think about getting ET-94 flight ready and just doing some contingency planning for an STS-136 next summer as a backup to Souyz and commercial cargo? I understand ET-94 is heavier. Could we still get a reasonable amount of supplies? What makes more sense MPLM or SpaceHab? -
#10 by rdale on 01 Sep, 2011 18:20
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2) Would it not be be prudent to think about getting ET-94 flight ready and just doing some contingency planning for an STS-136 next summer as a backup to Souyz and commercial cargo?
No, the shuttle program ended yesterday. -
#11 by hop on 01 Sep, 2011 21:21
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Why can't the Soyuz land in somewhere else in a pinch like Montana or Saskatchewan where there is plenty of flat land and the latitude is the same as Russia?
It can land almost anywhere in an emergency, but the whole point of not landing at night or mid-winter is to reduce risk. Not having the regular SAR and tracking assets would increase risk. Moving or replicating those assets in another country would be expensive.1) Australia might be an option. Also what about White Sands or somewhere else in the Southwest US? Edwards? Nellis? etc.
Woomera looks pretty promising to me. The US sites might be difficult: you need a ballistic site ~400km short of the nominal one. You also presumably to account for any bits of the SM and orbital module that survive. The Soyuz landing ellipse is big, so even your range is large enough, you'd have to be sure it didn't hit no-go areas with unexploded munitions etc.
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#12 by N45deg on 02 Sep, 2011 00:28
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Emergency landing sites for the Soyuz have been considered in the past including Texas and Oklahoma as possible sites.
http://www.svengrahn.pp.se/histind/Ugol/Ugol.html
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=815 -
#13 by Lars_J on 02 Sep, 2011 20:40
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If (and this is a BIG if) a Soyuz attempts to land in continental USA and there is advance notice, how large of an area would have to have its air space shut down?
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#14 by mtakala24 on 02 Sep, 2011 21:12
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If (and this is a BIG if) a Soyuz attempts to land in continental USA and there is advance notice, how large of an area would have to have its air space shut down?
hmm... the ballistic landing side with a good few hundred km radius and the targeted landing site with a similar radius... not sure if it would be prudent to have anything in between as non-fly zone. The real question is that is there any suitable landing sites in the US that would satisfy the parametres for the landing AND having the ballistic landing site in a good spot upstream of the landing groundtrack at the same time. Anyone care to improvise here?
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#15 by STS Tony on 03 Sep, 2011 04:26
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REALLY enjoy your ISS articles, Pete. Best in the media.
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#16 by Space Pete on 03 Sep, 2011 15:08
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REALLY enjoy your ISS articles, Pete. Best in the media.
Thanks, Tony (and also to Terry Naylor for the compliment below)!
It means a lot to me that people like my articles - especially considering I'm not even a career journalist like Chris. So, again, thanks.
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#17 by dwb0407 on 04 Sep, 2011 13:00
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Has anyone considered the following?
This suggestion would only come into play if the Soyuz-FG hasn't been cleared for manned flight by late October. In which event TMA-22 will still be on the ground.
If we aren't cleared for human flight then they launch TMA-22 unmanned. TMA-22 could serve as one of the return to flight launches. The Soyuz it self is not affected by it launchers problems and once in space can auto dock with the Space Station, or be assisted by Station Crew if necessary.
The following two outcomes are possible.
1. TMA-22 fails to reach orbit. In which event the de-manning of station proceeds as suggested with TMA-02M departing Nov 16th.
2. TMA-22 reaches orbit, and docks with station. TMA-02M is de-orbited empty as it will soon reached it's limit of 200 days. TMA-22 becomes the current ship for the three remaining crew members. Theoretically those three crew can stay on board for an additional 200 days with TMA-22. This gives everyone an additional six months to fix the problem with the launch vehicle, without demanning station or unnecessarily risking life.
Yes. The Station will have to operate in 3 person mode (less science, more ground automation). Yes Mike, Satoshi and Sergey may have to spend as much as 12 months on station if clearance for human flight isn't achieved sooner.
Given the present status of the investigation as we know it, and the given plan for "return to flight". This option should be on the table if the Soyuz is cleared for launch, but not cleared for human launch. In those circumstances, I do not see need to de-man the station given this option.
I welcome comments and poking holes or suggested improvements to this option.
I'd also like to know if anyone at NASA or Roscosmos considered it and/or rejected it and if at all possible why.
Don -
#18 by aquarius on 04 Sep, 2011 17:57
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It's not going to happen. 12 months is not an option for NASA and I don't think the Russians will like it much either.
), so the conservative thing is to leave ISS relatively soon.