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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.