Translated material
"Union" is indestructible
The accident at Baikonur, oddly enough, confirmed the reliability of the Russian rocket when launching a man into space
There is a new accident in our space industry. Shortly after the launch, during the separation of the spent side stages of the Soyuz MS-10 from the central block of the second stage, the automation recorded an emergency development of the situation and launched the crew rescue system. The descent vehicle fired off the rocket, released its parachute and landed on the flight path. American and Russian cosmonauts are alive. Until the causes of the accident are clarified, there will be no flights to the ISS.
This accident has a pronounced political component. Although it was no longer possible to observe it with the naked eye, it is true that it happened in the personal presence of the head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, and his American colleague, NASA director James Brindenstine. Their difficult negotiations are devoted to the future cooperation between Russia and the United States in space and in the first place - the role of the Russian Federation in the construction of an international space station in lunar orbit.
This meeting has been in preparation since the spring, and all this time Rogozin has been regularly making broadcast statements leading directly to a confrontation with NASA. Our sources see this as the typical behavior of a politician concerned about personal positions. Dmitry Olegovich has not yet become a manager dealing with real problems in an industry that is in a protracted crisis.
The accident at Baikonur, of course, devalued the arguments with which he could achieve favorable conditions for Russia to participate in the international lunar program with the decisive participation of the United States. Politician Rogozin received a crushing blow. As for Rogozin as a manager (if he finally becomes one), then, oddly enough, an accident is not a disaster for him. Here it is necessary to say words that will sound dissonant with the inevitable assessment of the accident in social networks and the mainstream media.
In fact, the Soyuz rocket has once again confirmed its reputation - it is almost ideal as a means of launching a person into space. A manned missile differs from a cargo one primarily in its 99% reliability, for which everything must be sacrificed: cost, modern technologies, payload, etc. If a truck accident ends with a revision of launch plans and, after the investigation, the payment of insurance under the contract, then manned flight requires a completely different thing. The life of astronauts always and everywhere comes first.
The 1% of manned spacecraft accidents that happen to everyone should end in crew rescue. In any situation, rescue systems must work reliably. This was the main drawback of the Space Shuttle system installed on the Challenger, both in the event of a death in the active phase of the flight, and in the deorbit phase.
The Soyuz multi-stage rescue system works differently depending on the development of the accident. Salvation is possible even before launch, as happened in 1983.
Such solutions are very expensive, they seriously worsen the energy of the rocket. But from this point of view, the Soyuz is indeed an ideal rocket, as we have seen once again.
The package scheme of the Soyuz and the technical solutions for saving the crew were laid down by Korolev. This is not the Challenger, where people flew, in fact, sitting on a hydrogen barrel that detonated in microseconds. And it is better not to think about what consequences the death of the Russian and American cosmonauts would have had on Thursday.
Once an old version of the royal "seven", taken from the arsenal, unsuccessfully started from Plesetsk. The obsolete sensors allowed the high frequency oscillations of the rocket at the start to go beyond tolerances. As a result, a micro-leak appeared, and oxygen began to flow into the space between the tanks directly at the engines of the central unit. With such a lethal leak, the rocket flew for nearly 300 seconds more. The accident occurred simply because the oxygen ran out - a few more seconds and the third stage would have separated, and the cargo would have gone into orbit.
Such is the degree of reliability, it has not been lost - on October 11, 2018, in the presence of NASA Director Brindenstine, the great designer Sergei Korolev saved parquet manager Dmitry Rogozin.
When launching a rocket, there are several areas where the risk of an accident is maximum. This is the moment of starting the engines, starting, as well as separating any parts of the structure from it. In our case, something went wrong when separating the side steps of the package from the central one. But the main task was completed - to save people even in the event of an accident.
From people who are seriously involved in space, the accident requires finding and eliminating the cause. Nothing more is required, and Brindenstine is one of them. The accident reminds him that Lockheed Martin's Orion, which is currently under construction, poses no less danger to astronauts before it passes many tests and develops a reputation. Of course, ordinary people tend to consider themselves Schumachers after a year of driving a car, and they also refer to space flights before the first serious incident. But professionals understand that technology cannot give 100 percent reliability.
The politician is more like just an ordinary person, he is ready to play political games with childish irresponsibility even in matters of life and death. If Russia continues to find out who is in charge in the clearing and whose drill drilled the ISS, this will most likely lead to the decline of our cosmonautics. We would have to deal with technologies and production discipline, but we are stuffing our own price. And this is under the peals of the explosion of the Soyuz MS-10.
It's a paradox, but confirmation of the reliability of the rescue system in a real accident is just an argument for a top manager in a conversation with a colleague. The future international station in lunar orbit is an immeasurably more complex tool for understanding the world than the ISS. The tasks that will have to be solved during its creation are such that the Americans themselves announced last week: it will be built on the principle of open architecture. With this approach, any country can join the project much easier. That is, the United States understands that it is too expensive and risky to carry such a load alone.
For Russia, the accident should be an occasion to rethink the concept that put all responsibility for space on the state with a steadily falling budget.
It is quite possible that in its current state the industry cannot be saved at all. The separation of military and scientific space on a solid state budget from commercial launches and the transfer of all other functions to private companies, as they began to do in the US and Europe, can be a salvation for her.
If we want (based on historical memory, military and other national interests) to preserve Russia as a space power, it’s time to admit that the endless games of partitions and associations in various combinations in the form of state corporations no longer work. When Rogozin was appointed to the leadership of Roskosmos, many wrote about it. The world has changed too much to ignore the new, although our generals and directors, having no other experience, stubbornly cling to the Soviet industry model. But it is impossible to fly into orbit with the head turned back.