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Re:Astronauts escape malfunctioning Soyuz rocket by mikeash on Thursday October 11, 2018 @10:41AM (#18193897)
I wonder what it’s like for the astronauts. One moment you’re sitting in a rocket ready to spend the next six months in space, you’ve said your goodbyes, you’re thinking about what it will be like, what sorts of pictures you want to take, what you’ll say when you make that first phone call home from space... and then ten minutes later you stumble out into the Kazakh wilderness and start scanning the sky for rescue helicopters.
Re:Astronauts escape malfunctioning Soyuz rocket by rbanffy on Thursday October 11, 2018 @11:49AM (#18194500)
"Months of boredom punctuated by moments of terror."

I imagine you are happily doing 3, maybe 4 G's, then an alarm sounds and suddenly the escape system (or mission control, your the commander) decides you are not going to space after all, adds 10 G's or so to what you are already doing for a couple seconds, then a couple seconds of free fall until the parachutes open, then the final kick when you are about to land.

They had a very bad day.

At least it's not a very long time inside a Soyuz. I don't think I fit inside one.

Re:Astronauts escape malfunctioning Soyuz rocket by Rebelgecko on Thursday October 11, 2018 @11:53AM (#18194532)
I think their first indication that something was wrong was that they felt weightless at a time when they should've been experiencing 4g's. Apparently after the abort they still stayed under 7g
Re:Astronauts escape malfunctioning Soyuz rocket by rbanffy on Thursday October 11, 2018 @11:57AM (#18194579)
Yes. It happened right after they ejected the escape rocket (which is probably terrifying to use), so they used the stage separation mechanism.

That's a much gentler experience, provided the booster doesn't explode.

Re:Astronauts escape malfunctioning Soyuz rocket by mikejb on Thursday October 11, 2018 @12:24PM (#18194832)
Jep, the escape system is definitely not a walk in the park. As far as I know, the Soyuz escape system is the only one that was deployed with people inside, in the Soyuz T-10a accident. Suffice to say, the cosmonauts didn't like it very much. They got between 14g-17g for 5 seconds, which removed them 4km downwards from the exploding launch vehicle.

After landing safely (and being badly bruised), they asked for cigarettes and were given shots of Vodka. [1]

[1] http://www.americaspace.com/2013/09/28/we-were-swearing-thir...

Re:Astronauts escape malfunctioning Soyuz rocket by mito88 on Thursday October 11, 2018 @02:59PM (#18196126)
addding a little insult to injury, they landed 400km away from their base, in the very middle of god knows where...

"A few hundred miles."

Re:Astronauts escape malfunctioning Soyuz rocket by phyller on Thursday October 11, 2018 @11:32AM (#18194332)
Yea, wonder if they felt disappointed or relieved. Regardless, they are part of a very small club of "astronaut's whose rocket broke during launch and are still alive". I wonder who else is in that club?
Re:Astronauts escape malfunctioning Soyuz rocket by mulmen on Thursday October 11, 2018 @01:13PM (#18195236)
The crew of STS-51-F although they aborted to orbit.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-51-F

Re:Astronauts escape malfunctioning Soyuz rocket by skrause on Thursday October 11, 2018 @01:46PM (#18195531)
Here is the broadcast of that mission: https://youtu.be/JSbMs_OnE4c?t=3m8s
Re:Astronauts escape malfunctioning Soyuz rocket by phyller on Thursday October 11, 2018 @06:29PM (#18197526)
Classic, the sensors whose purpose is to ensure that something doesn't kill you, actually become the things that almost kill you.
Re:Astronauts escape malfunctioning Soyuz rocket by hcrisp on Thursday October 11, 2018 @07:48PM (#18197969)
Apollo 12 crew, if you count a lightning strike taking out the electronics of the vehicle, but not rocket.

https://www.universetoday.com/98484/this-day-in-space-histor...

Re:Astronauts escape malfunctioning Soyuz rocket by dba7dba on Thursday October 11, 2018 @11:48AM (#18194491)
I honestly cannot think of any such incident happening in all the years of space exploration. Crewed or not-crewed capsule. And I've watched enough documentaries on Apollo and other space programs.

It's the beginning of a very very small, exclusive club, one that will hopefully not be too big.

Re:Astronauts escape malfunctioning Soyuz rocket by dba7dba on Thursday October 11, 2018 @12:06PM (#18194672)
Learned something new today.

The other Soyuz incident in 1983 was Soyuz 7K-ST No.16L, sometimes known as Soyuz T-10a or T-10-1.

Found below from wiki.

It was an unsuccessful Soyuz mission intended to visit the Salyut 7 space station, which was occupied by the Soyuz T-9 crew. However, it never finished its launch countdown; the launch vehicle was destroyed on the launch pad by fire on September 26, 1983. The launch escape system of the Soyuz spacecraft fired two seconds before the launch vehicle exploded, saving the crew. It is the first case in which a launch escape system has been fired with a crew aboard.

In early US space program, in one of the test flights before Apollo program, a 2 stage rocket failed mid flight. The rocket escape system attached on top of the capsule fired and successfully saved the capsule. But there was no crew in the capsule.

Just watched this PBS special on the US space program. Pretty interesting footage. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jia78xRMTEc

Re:Astronauts escape malfunctioning Soyuz rocket by mikeash on Thursday October 11, 2018 @12:16PM (#18194757)
The best part about that Apollo test flight is that it was intended to be a test of the escape system, but it was not intended to involve the rocket exploding underneath the capsule. It ended up being an even better test of the escape system than was planed.

There have been some other, less consequential manned launch failures.

Apollo 12 was struck by lightning during ascent, and only some quick thinking saved the mission.

Apollo 13 suffered extreme vibration in the second stage center engine that nearly tore the rocket apart. (This is unrelated to the more famous problem Apollo 13 experienced later in the mission.) Fortunately the vibrations messed with sensors which caused the engine to shut down, and the launch continued on the remaining four.

STS-51-F lost an engine a few minutes after launch. It was still able to make orbit on the remaining engines, but ended up in a lower orbit than planned.

Re:Astronauts escape malfunctioning Soyuz rocket by justinator on Thursday October 11, 2018 @11:56AM (#18194565)
They mention another Soyuz accident in the article.
Re:Astronauts escape malfunctioning Soyuz rocket by mulmen on Thursday October 11, 2018 @01:16PM (#18195265)
Aborted takeoffs and go arounds are generally routine in avaiation right? Surely using an abort mechanism is preferable to killing the passengers and crew. I see nothing wrong with adding some names to the list of people who survived.
Re:Astronauts escape malfunctioning Soyuz rocket by dba7dba on Thursday October 11, 2018 @01:49PM (#18195565)
I did not mean to come across as saying I want escape systems to not work.

With space launch systems, any use of escape system is dangerous and best to avoid. I think it will be a long time before aborting/escaping from botched space launch and recovery will be as routine as aborted takeoffs and go arounds.

Re:Astronauts escape malfunctioning Soyuz rocket by mikeash on Thursday October 11, 2018 @01:59PM (#18195661)
Just to compare the two a bit more: NASA’s requirements for the Commercial Crew program (where Boeing and SpaceX are building capsules to visit ISS) is for a loss of crew probability of 1 in 270. Note that this isn’t an abort probability, it’s the probability that everyone dies despite the abort system’s best efforts.

The probability for commercial airliners is something around 1 in 100 million.

Re:Astronauts escape malfunctioning Soyuz rocket by avmich on Thursday October 11, 2018 @11:54AM (#18194544)
Something similar happened with another Soyuz in 1983, right?
Re:Astronauts escape malfunctioning Soyuz rocket by docbrown on Thursday October 11, 2018 @12:17PM (#18194762)
The Soyuz T-10-1 launch in 1983, maybe? The escape system launched minutes before the explosion on the launching pad happened.[0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_7K-ST_No._16L

Re:Astronauts escape malfunctioning Soyuz rocket by jpatokal on Thursday October 11, 2018 @03:29PM (#18196329)
2 to 6 seconds before the explosion, not minutes.
Re:Astronauts escape malfunctioning Soyuz rocket by dotancohen on Thursday October 11, 2018 @01:40PM (#18195477)
> I wonder what it’s like for the astronauts.

It is better to be on the ground wishing that you were in orbit, than to be in orbit wishing that you were on the ground.

Re:Astronauts escape malfunctioning Soyuz rocket by borkt on Thursday October 11, 2018 @11:34AM (#18194348)
I would not be surprised if the astronauts go into a launch fully expecting a malfunction, even though the soyuz hasn't had a failure since 1983 if wikipedia is to be believed.
Re:Astronauts escape malfunctioning Soyuz rocket by vkou on Thursday October 11, 2018 @01:05PM (#18195173)
The reason astronauts are trained so much is so that they know what to do in case of equipment malfunction. So, yes, they all go into launches hoping that everything will work, but being ready when it doesn't.
Re:Astronauts escape malfunctioning Soyuz rocket by tobylane on Thursday October 11, 2018 @04:58PM (#18196986)
All that training in fluent, technical Russian, as the manuals haven't been translated.
Re:Astronauts escape malfunctioning Soyuz rocket by anovikov on Thursday October 11, 2018 @11:47AM (#18194479)
The spaceship wasn't on a launch which involved failure, since 1983. Soyuz rocket fails once every few years. Just the crewed launched were lucky (and also crewed rockets are checked better + in many cases, older, lower performance, but better tested AND downrated for increased reliability, mods were used).

For example, Progress ship (very close in design to Soyuz ship, unmanned ship to deliver supplies, not recoverable) failed less than 2 years ago due to launcher failure.

Re:Astronauts escape malfunctioning Soyuz rocket by avmich on Thursday October 11, 2018 @11:56AM (#18194568)
Crewed rockets are Soyuz-FG, other rockets used to be Soyuz-U, then Soyuz-2, variations Soyuz-2.1a and Soyuz-2.1b . Those are slightly different rockets - mainly engines of first stage (four booster parts) are different (if I'm not mistaken) and 3rd stage is different.
Re:Astronauts escape malfunctioning Soyuz rocket by mabbo on Thursday October 11, 2018 @06:45PM (#18197629)
I suspect they've mentally prepared for far worse outcomes. Space is cool, but the Kazahk wilderness sure beats the third option.
Re:Astronauts escape malfunctioning Soyuz rocket by ezoe on Thursday October 11, 2018 @11:34AM (#18194354)
There are more than 500 people visited the space. Not many people experienced the rocket failure and lives to tell about it.
Re:Astronauts escape malfunctioning Soyuz rocket by djsumdog on Thursday October 11, 2018 @11:44AM (#18194447)
The Challenger and the Columbia both had catastrophic failures during launch and re-entry respectively. Of course those were shuttles and not rockets, but still as far as space flight goes, the statistics were against them.
Re:Astronauts escape malfunctioning Soyuz rocket by ohithereyou on Thursday October 11, 2018 @11:55AM (#18194558)
The Challenger crew is thought to have to survived the initial explosion[1], though how long they would have remained conscious is questioned. The collision with the ocean is what killed them, not the explosion.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disas...