On October 10 2018 there was an emergency abort of the Russian Soyuz FG rocket that was carrying the Soyuz 10 spacecraft to orbit with Cosmonaut Aleksey Ovchinin Astronaut Nick Hague to the International Space Station as part of crew rotation for Expedition 57. See first pic
The crew apparently experienced 7 gs of force as the emergency separation motors ignited, 2 motors fire immediately and then a second set ignite 0.32 seconds later in order to reduce the initial G loading experienced by the crew.
Pic #2 diagram of Soyuz core stage and 4 boosters
Apparently one of the boosters separated incorrectly and recontacted the core stage and punctured a fuel tank, this caused and explosion and the emergency system enabled which causes the Soyuz capsule to separate from the Soyuz rocket.
Pic#3 Soyuz just before launch from its launch pad
Pic#4 A picture of a Soyuz launch vehicle just after staging, you can see the 4 boosters that have been dropped and they form a shape which is referred to as "Korolev's Cross".
Pic#5 This shows the 3 parts of the Soyuz space vehicle. See picture #7 for what the Orbital Module looks like after it comes back to Earth without a parachute from an altitude of 93 kilometers.approx 57 miles.
All three of those sections meet up with the ISS, the Canadarm-2 reaches out and "grapples" the Soyuz and berths it to the ISS. The Soyuz stays with the ISS during the entire time the crew that rode it to space is at ISS. IOW Usually, if you ride up on a Soyuz, you will go home on the very same Soyuz. This is how the Soyuz system is like an emergency lifeboat in case the crew needs to shelter or evacuate from the ISS. The Soyuz "seats" actually more of a "couch" are custom formed for each cosmo-astro-naut as the landing forces are pretty high on Soyuz. When its time for crew to return to Earth, the Soyuz leaves the, performs its de orbit burn and Earths gravity begins to bring Soyuz to Earth. The instrumentation/service module and orbital modules separate from the descent module, experiences all the heat from that crazy re entry ride, then once slowed down it pops its parachutes and usually lands somewhere in the Khazak desert. Just before it touches down, at an altitude of 10-12 feet, a series of retrorockets fire and help to "soften" the hit of landing.
Currently there are 3 crew aboard ISS, they are due to come home in December. Each Soyuz capsule is limited in its length of service docked to the ISS in space because its fuels begin to degrade after a certain amount of time. IIRC the limit is approx. 200 days or so.
Soyuz MS-11 will be launched atop another Soyuz FG rocket in December. Russian Commander Oleg Kononenko, Canadian CSA astronaut David Saint-Jacques and American NASA astronaut Anne McClain are scheduled to launch aboard Soyuz MS-11. No official flight has been announced yet, though my back door sources tell me that Soyuz will with humans again in December. A Soyuz rocket has launched successfully last week for a satellite, and another Soyuz will launch next week to launch another satellite. These rockets are Soyuz rockets which are similar to the human rated Soyuz FG, though the boosters(that failed) are common between the human rated rocket and the non human rated rocket.
Here is the real accident with some visual techniques applied
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=8&v=rROPB0QrZVYHere is a SIMULATION of the Soyuz abort scenario for MS-10.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=ocn7aLqEq-QPic #6 is a pic of the failed Soyuz FG booster on the ground post flight.
Pic #7 The Soyuz Orbital Module after it return ballistically to Earth after attaining an altitude of 03kms/57miles
Within the next year both of the Commercial Crew contractors which are Boeing with their Starliner/CST-100 to be launched atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas-5 rocket and the Space X Dragon-2 capsule which is the newest version of the Space-X capsule, this one being rated to carry humans. Drangon-2 will use a human rated Falcon-9 rocket to lift Dragon to to the ISS. Both capsules will deliver crews to ISS, stay on station for 5-12 months and bring the crew home. Either the Starliner or teh Dragon-2, when launched, will end the embarrassingly long amount of time that has elapsed since the USA has NOT had the capability to launch humans into space and have relied on Russians to take our crew to our own space station at the cost of US$83 million per passenger. The last launch of humans from Earth to space occurred on July 21, 2018. 2659 days or 7 years, 3 months, 10 days have elapsed since STS-135 launched from KSC in Florida carrying 4 people to the ISS.
SLS/Orion is still plugging along, probably not going to launch Exploration Mission #1 which is a crewless first flight or Orion which will fly to the Moon and back in order to test new systems. The driving force is the Core Stage of the SLS rocket.
Speaking of SLS, there is a RS-25 engine test today at Stennis Space Center between 2-3pm CDT Central Daylight Time.
And yes, the RS-25 engine test will be shown on NASA-TV. I justy checked. NASA.gov
peace
Hog
