Cosmic catastrophes almost happened, part 2

We continue the story of cosmic catastrophes, which were prevented by the prudence of the designers of rocket technology, the intensive work of the MCC, decisiveness and high training of the crews, or simple luck.

Soyuz-5

January 18, 1969. The Soyuz-5 spacecraft with cosmonaut Boris Volynov returned to Earth after a successful mission. The ships Soyuz-4 and Soyuz-5 made the first Soviet manned docking. The cosmonauts Eliseev and Khrunov, who started together with Volyn, went into spacesuits in the Soyuz-4. Yeliseyev, Khrunov and Shatalov, who started in the Soyuz-4, had already landed safely on January 17. And Volynov had a deadly problem. Established landing ship "Soyuz" includes the separation of compartments. Household and instrument-unit compartments burn in the atmosphere, and the descent module is landing.
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However, the instrument and aggregate compartment (PJSC) did not want to separate. His weight changed the balance of the connected compartments, and, instead of entering the atmosphere with a heat shield ahead, "Soyuz-5" flew "upside down":



The thermal protection layer covers the entire surface of the “Soyuz” descent vehicle, but it is uneven, and a thin layer on the upper part can provide protection only for a short time. The cabin began to fill with fumes - the metal of the hatch began to melt, and the rubber gasket began to smolder. What did Volyn do? Waiting for the inevitable death and not being able to do anything, he frantically filled out the logbook and dictated what was happening on the onboard tape recorder - so that this information would help in investigating the disaster and save those astronauts who fly after it. Fortunately, the disaster did not happen. Precautionary designers proved sufficient. A layer of thermal protection was enough until the moment when PJSC was burned enough to fall off on its own. However, the problems are not over. The descent vehicle (SA) began to rotate. Rotational inertia could disrupt the parachute opening. In front of Volynov, the fate of Komarov who died on the Soyuz-1 due to the failure of the parachute system loomed. Here is how he himself describes what happened:

At an altitude of 80–90 km, the SA, separated from the PJSC, began to "tumble", and then gradually moved to a rotation around the longitudinal axis. At an altitude of 10 km parachute system worked. After the release of the main dome, the parachute lines began to curl. Then there was a sharp stop of the SA rotation, and there was a gnash of metal. These earrings creaked, to which the straps of the parachute are attached. Fortunately, the parachute did not “form”, and the SA began to rotate in the opposite direction, and so it rotated to the Earth itself. Therefore, the landing was extremely hard. The blow fell on the shoulders and the back of the head and turned out to be of such strength that I had a fracture of the roots of the teeth of the upper jaw, but remained alive ... I saved a lodgement. Then I opened the hatch, because from the burning it was difficult to breathe. Ash poured on me, into which sealing rubber turned, and on the hatch cover a “cap” of foamed heat-resistant steel was formed ...

And even after landing, the adventures did not end - before the solemn meeting, the terrorist who decided to make an attempt on Brezhnev, confused the cars and opened fire on the astronauts, firing full clips from two pistols. The driver was killed, a KGB officer was injured on a motorcycle, and one of the bullets hit Leonov's overcoat, who was driving in the second car.

Apollo 12

The terrestrial services forced Apollo-12 flight. The fact is that at the launch site, the launch vehicle was twice struck by lightning. Due to the qualifications of the MCC and the astronauts, the alarm caused by the on-board alarm system was quickly resolved , and the mission was not abnormally completed. But a much more terrible danger loomed over the astronauts - a parachute burner could burn a lightning bolt, and in the process of landing the parachute simply wouldn't open. The astronauts could not check the sprayers, there was no firm confidence in the refusal, and it was impossible to save the astronauts. Therefore, the MCC, even without informing the astronauts of this danger, continued the mission. Fears did not materialize - the parachutes opened normally, but I think someone in Houston had gray hair.

Apollo 13

And about the "Apollo 13" there is a separate publication with a rather detailed story .

Apollo 15

August 7, 1971. The crew of the Apollo 15 returns to Earth. Behind a very successful mission with a stay on the moon for three days and travel on the first lunar "car". At an altitude of 7200 m, the parachute system begins to work - the parachute cover is reset, two brake parachutes are introduced, and, after twenty seconds, three main ones. All three parachutes open normally. The next operation is the dumping of toxic fuel residues of the controlled descent system. Drained nitrogen tetroxide and hydrazine somehow damage three of the six lines of one of the parachutes. The parachute collapses:



This was where the foresight of the designers came in handy. The fact is that the Apollo parachutes are designed with a margin - and two of them are enough for a normal landing. The astronauts just splashed down at a speed slightly higher than usual. If the components of the fuel burned two of the three parachutes, then only the integrity of the ship and the lives of the astronauts would be under threat.

Union-15

The flight of the Soyuz-15 almost led to the first space accident. In the process of approaching the station, the Igla automatic docking system perceived the distance to the station at 350 meters as 20 kilometers and gave an accelerating impulse for faster convergence. The convergence speed increased to 20 m / s (72 km / h!) With a permissible 0.3 m / s. Only the lateral speed, acceptable at a “twenty-kilometer” distance, saved from a collision — the Soyuz flew past the station at a distance of 40 m. The crew did not realize what was happening and did not interfere in any way with the controls. After the flight of the station, the working “Needle” deployed the ship and repeated the deadly maneuver two more times. As a result, the MCC was the first to understand the abnormality of the situation. The “needle” was turned off, but there was not enough fuel for manual approach and docking. The early "Unions" had a very small supply of fuel for the approach and docking, which several times led to the disruption of the flight program.
After the flight, a conflict arose in the commission investigating the incident - the control system developers blamed the cosmonaut training (“the situation was obviously abnormal, why didn’t they intervene?”), The CPC methodologists defended themselves (“you didn’t give us this refusal and no signs of its recognition”). Now, from the height of the after-knowledge, it is clear that both parties are to blame for this incident. The developers of the control system too believed in their system to carefully analyze possible failures. The CPC methodologists also seemed to strongly believe in automation, because they did not work through possible problems on their own initiative. After a similar incident with the Soyuz-23, the problem of the quality of crews got stronger, measures were taken, already in 1980 on the Soyuz-T-2 the failure of the automatic docking system did not disrupt the flight program, and in 1982 on the Soyuz-T- 6 "cosmonauts interfered with the control almost immediately after the failure of the automation, demonstrating excellent training.

Soyuz-18-1, he is Soyuz-18A

April 5, 1975. The spacecraft starts to the Salyut-4 orbital station, which is to receive the name Soyuz-18, with cosmonauts Vasily Lazarev and Oleg Makarov. Trouble starts at the site of separation of the second and third stages. At 289 seconds of flight, a command is issued to turn off the engine of the second stage. Due to the failure of the relay, a command is issued simultaneously with this command to reset the tail section of the third stage, but only to three locks out of six. The third stage engines were already gaining traction, this traction broke the remaining locks, and the tail section finally separated:



The abnormal process of separation of steps led to angular perturbations — the stage with the ship began to rotate at a speed of 20 ° / s and deviate along two other axes at a speed of 5 ° / s. At 295 seconds, the angular perturbations became incompatible with the normal continuation of the flight, the automation of the control system formed the command “Rocket Crash” and engaged in saving the lives of astronauts. The ship was separated from the third stage, divided into compartments, the descent vehicle turned forward with a heat shield and switched to the landing mode. The second problem manifested itself - the controlled descent system during the accident “lost” the position of the correct top and bottom, and instead of reducing the overload, prolonging the braking process, turned the SA, “digging” it into the atmosphere even more:



As a result, the overload reached life-threatening 21.3 g (with a maximum in emergency situations of 15 g). After 21 minutes after the launch, the ship landed in Ore Altai , flying 1574 km from the start. Cosmonaut Oleg Makarov recalls:

The rocket launch went well, we are flying, we are waiting for the third stage to start. But ... suddenly the engine was silent. A siren screamed, the “Accident RN” banner lit up, the car spun around sharply, and the Sunshine darted around the cabin. In the first moments we did not even understand what had happened. After a few seconds, it became clear that there was some kind of failure in the rocket, and automatic equipment separated our ship from it.
We tried to contact the Earth, but there was no radio communication. During the subsequent analysis, it turned out that the radio communication was one-way: the Earth heard us well, and PI Klimuk shouted into the microphone, calling us, but we did not hear it. We tried to figure out where to land. Most of all, we were worried that we could get to the territory of China, because then we had strained relations with this country. There has come a suspense ...
While finding out the landing site, weightlessness ceased, and overload occurred. We did not expect it to be so big. It is known that it becomes unbearably hard for a person with a 10-fold overload, and we have had it much more. It began to "leave"
sight: at first it turned into black and white color, and then the angle of view began to narrow. We were in a faint state, but still did not lose consciousness. While the overload is pressing, you only think that you need to resist it, and we resisted as best we could. With such a huge overload, when it is unbearably hard, it is recommended to shout, and we shouted with all our might, although it looked like it was a squeezed wheeze.
After a few minutes, the overload began to slowly subside. The first thing a little breath and began to recover. At this time, the parachute system worked. We landed, the descent vehicle swayed a little and stopped. We climbed out and found that we were on the side of a mountain covered with snow and a half meters deep. Less than half an hour ago, we flew away from Baikonur, it was + 25 ° C, and now we are in the mountains at minus temperatures. Lit the fire - warmed up. Soon came the search aircraft. We climbed into the descent vehicle and established radio contact with it. When we asked where we were, we were informed that we had landed in the Soviet Union in Altai.
We could only be evacuated the next day. All night we did not sleep and sat by the fire, discussing our emergency flight. It was then that I thought about how well done the people were who foresaw this emergency situation. In abnormal conditions, all the automatic systems of the ship worked clearly and in the right way. It was like a fairy tale: thanks to people, most of them unfamiliar to us, we safely “returned from the next world”. It was an awesome feeling
miracle That night we agreed with Vasily Lazarev that henceforth we will celebrate this day as our second birthday ...

After this flight, the algorithm of the controlled descent system was changed - now, in the event of an accident, the descent vehicle began to rotate evenly, making a ballistic descent, which eliminated the effects of orientation errors.

Soyuz-Apollo

The American part of the Soyuz-Apollo flight almost ended in tragedy. The problem again arose at the site of landing and drainage of fuel residues. Now, due to an incorrectly set switch, toxic nitrogen tetroxide began to flow into the Apollo's cabin. Astronaut Vance Brand lost consciousness. The same fate threatened the two remaining astronauts. But Thomas Stafford already got emergency oxygen masks. Wearing one of them, he quickly handed the mask to Dick Slayton and put it on Brand. The astronauts received 0.3 ppm nitrogen tetroxide with a lethal dose of 0.4 ppm and spent two weeks in the hospital.

Soyuz-23

The Soyuz-23 expedition (crew of Vyacheslav Zudov and Valery Rozhdestvensky) to the Salyut-5 orbital station completely drank pure bad luck. On October 15, 1976, on the second day of the flight, the automatic docking system began to work abnormally at the long-range approach. There were incomprehensible fluctuations ("fluctuations") of the signal, which the control system perceived as deviations of the ship from the approach path, and began to actively maneuver. Turning on the mooring engines and orientation led to real deviations of the trajectory, which the system extinguished with new impulses, wasting precious fuel. And he, as we remember, was very small in the early "Unions". The crew did not recognize the problem and did not respond to the abnormal maneuvers of the ship. The MCC most quickly coped with the analysis of the situation - the docking was canceled. I had to return to Earth "not salty eaten." And here the real danger awaited.
The night landing, as in the case of the Soyuz-15, was held normally, but ended in a phenomenal bad luck hit in Lake Tengiz. Night, blizzard, and landing on the ice of the lake! Salt water of the lake closes the contacts, and, after the shooting of the main parachute, the reserve is opened. The lander because of the parachute falls to the side. The antennas are under water, from the helicopters of rescuers it seems that the Soyuz has drowned. The reality is not much better - the SA roll has led to the fact that the breathing valves are under snow and water, and you can only breathe with internal air. Rescuers found the ship, but by this time regeneration cartridges began to end, reducing oxygen from carbon dioxide.


The descent vehicle "Soyuz-23" in the water. Nearby is a lifeguard Nikolai Chernavsky, who alone could only give moral support to astronauts.

The crew began to experience oxygen starvation. A blizzard did not allow the use of helicopters. By morning, the weather had improved, but it was necessary to act very quickly - one of the astronauts had already lost consciousness. In violation of all instructions, with the risk of breaking the helicopter, rescuers began to tow the "Union" with a parachute dragging behind:



The rescuer Joseph Davydov remembers:

Shortly before the flight in Feodosia, tests were carried out on towing the descent vehicle with the crew on board by helicopters and boats. They worked out the techniques, determined the modes of towing so that the hatch did not knock out with the pressure of the water, and the crew did not drown. I participated in these tests, and now it was clear to me that the crew of the Soyuz could only be saved by towing. But these recommendations, based on test results, have not yet been included in the rescue instructions that were in force, and their violation under adverse circumstances could bring to court and prison.
There was no time for reflection and coordination with the flight management.
I suggested that Nikolai Kondratyev start towing:
- The instruction is prohibited! - retorted Kondratyev.
- Well, so what, we wait until they suffocate? Kolya, our comrades are there! Really, executing instructions, we will wait for their death, - I convinced. - We will keep the speed of seven kilometers and everything will be fine, I checked.
- Do you think you can fly for a long time at this speed? The engines will overheat! We ourselves are being crushed! - said Kondratyev, continuing to hold the helicopter over the descent vehicle.
- So that? We will wait until they suffocate? Forgiveness of you and me, Kolya, will not be!
- Bortekhnik, doctor, you are witnesses, the representative of the Cosmonaut Training Center orders me to tow the vehicle.
- If I could order you! I beg you, I beg you! You are the commander and only you, unfortunately, can make the final decision. And I am ready to share the responsibility with you. And in the presence of the crew, I repeat that I insist on towing - there is no other solution. Either life or death.
Kondratyev transferred the helicopter from hover mode to slow forward mode. Through the open door I watched as the descent vehicle climbed out of the icy bitter-salty slurry and crawled behind the helicopter. Two hundred meters the device was moving, throwing off an ice crust. Kondratiev watched the device for speed in tension, maintaining the speed I called - seven kilometers. He periodically looked out into the half-open cabin curtain. And although cold air rushed into her, a drop of sweat appeared on Kondratieff’s face from the strain. And suddenly the unexpected. It felt as if the helicopter had hit something viscous, and was thrown down to the ice of the lake. Kondratiev did not lose his head, reacted, and kept the helicopter from falling. Some unknown force dragged him back to the ice of the half-frozen lake. This unknown and tremendous force, which nearly killed us, was a six-meter-high reserve parachute canopy, which jumped out of the container at night, knocked down the descent vehicle and violated alignment, and now, having got out of the water to the surface, filled with a gust of wind and pulled us to the surface of the lake. Only experience and instant reaction Kondratieff saved us from disaster.
The helicopter tensed, overcoming the terrible force of the filled parachute dome. Kondratyev continued to pilot the car and tow the unit with a parachute. He did not lose his temper. He did not order to chop off the towing capron halyard, although this would be justified in this situation.

Rescuers had time. The ship was towed to the shore and managed to extract the pale to the blue, but the living astronauts. Ironically, the crew of the Soyuz-23 was a backup of the Soyuz-15, which also could not dock with the orbital station and sat down at night. And Valery Rozhdestvensky was the only diver sailor from the astronauts set.
The bad luck of the “Soyuz-23” turned out to be the only today’s landing of manned “Unions”. But all the crews, along with the rescuers, are trained in case of emergency landing - you should be ready even for an unlikely situation!

Soyuz-33

On the left is Nikolay Rukavishnikov, on the right Georgiy Ivanov.

April 10, 1979. The fourth flight of the Intercosmos program is launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome with the first Bulgarian cosmonaut (whose name for sounding is not very healthy, they changed their last name). The flight goes well before the stage of convergence. The converging-correction engine (ACS) instead of 6 seconds gives an impulse of only three seconds, and after that, for some reason, the approach and docking system is turned off. Soyuz-33 and the Salyut-6 station diverge at a distance of several meters. The MCC allows you to restart the “Needle” and retry the docking. The engine again behaves abnormally - it starts up with perceptible vibrations and immediately turns off. The crew of the Salyut-6 reports that it sees an abnormal lateral glow in the instrument compartment of the Soyuz. In the heads of the TsUP staff and astronauts, the book and Martin Kadin's film “Captive Orbits” pops up - this is the first failure of a spacecraft propulsion engine in the history of manned cosmonautics! There is a problem returning home. Fortunately, the "Union" has many options:

1. Return to the duplicate correction engine (DCD), which is specifically for such cases.
2. Use low-power mooring and orientation engines (APD), which are used for docking.
3. Trying to squeeze at least some impulse from the not fully failed ACS.
4. Trying to bring not the ship to the station, but the station to the ship (Salyut had its own engines) and only then dock at the DPO. Astronauts can spend a month or two at the station and try to repair the ship or wait for a new ship (from the next planned expedition), which theoretically can be prepared more quickly.

The easiest and safest is chosen - braking on DCD. He also gave a surprise - he refused to turn off at the calculated second. Before astronauts hung the question - turn it off? And if the engine gives an impulse lower than the calculated one, and intelligent automation tries to compensate for this, forcing it to work longer than the calculated one? A single turn on DKD will not turn it on again. And you have to decide quickly! Rukavishnikov gives DCD work extra 25 seconds and turns off the engine. The report in the MCC - "earth" for some reason is silent. A few more painful minutes. Finally, the MCC responds, and after twenty-five minutes the string of the toy, the “weightlessness indicator,” is pulled. The ship enters the atmosphere. After such experiences, the fact that a steeper trajectory of entry (DCD still worked longer than necessary) leads to a ballistic descent with an overload of 10 g instead of a regular controlled descent from 4-5 g, is perceived as not very serious.
The crew of the Soyuz-32, which is already at the station with the engine of the same series as the one that failed on the Soyuz-33, is waiting for the new Soyuz-34 with the new engine that has been thoroughly moved and is safely returning to Earth. A "Soyuz-32" sits down in an unmanned version, without experiencing any problems with the engine.

So what is next?

And about the events after 1979 will be the next part.

List of used sources

In addition to Wikipedia used:

1. Chertok Boris Evseevich, “Rockets and People” in 4 books.
2. Kamanin Nikolai Petrovich, “Hidden Space”, diaries in 4 books.
3. “When We Left Earth”, Discovery Channel, TV series, 2008.
4. Encyclopedia "World Manned Cosmonautics: History. Equipment. People ”ed. Yu.M. Baturin.
5. Joseph Davydov, “The Triumph and Tragedy of the Soviet Cosmonautics. In the eyes of the tester "

For navigation: a series of "space catastrophes and accidents . "