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The Soyuz-2-1 rocket is a descendent of the R-7 Semyorka, the world\u2019s first intercontinental ballistic missile. The R-7 was designed by Sergei Korolev, and first flew in 1957. A modified version was used to launch the first satellite, Sputnik 1, on 4 October of that year.<\/p>\n
The R-7 formed the basis for the Luna, Vostok, Voskhod, Molniya and Soyuz families of rockets, and to date all Soviet and Russian manned spaceflights have been launched using rockets derived from the R-7.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/A33218.jpg\" "\\"A33218\\"")
The Soyuz, which first flew in 1966, was a modification of the Voskhod rocket featuring an upgraded and lighter telemetry system, and more fuel efficient engines. It was initially used to launch only Soyuz spacecraft; however with the introduction of the Soyuz-U in 1973 it began to launch other satellites as well.<\/p>\nThe Soyuz-U, which remains in service, is the most-flown orbital launch system ever developed, having made around 750 flights to date, plus around 90 more in the Soyuz-U2 configuration optimised to use synthetic propellant.<\/p>\n
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The Soyuz-2 was developed from the older Soyuz models, and features digital flight control systems and modernised engines. It first flew in 2004, and this is its twelfth launch.<\/p>\n
Two variants are currently in service; the Soyuz-2-1a, and the Soyuz-2-1b which features an RD-0124 third stage engine which provides additional thrust. The RD-0124 was declared operational on 3 May 2011.<\/p>\n
A third configuration, the Soyuz-2-1v, is currently under development and is expected to make its maiden flight next year. It features an NK-33 engine in place of the RD-108A used on the core stages of the other configurations, and does not include the strapon boosters used by other configurations.<\/p>\n
The Soyuz-2 forms the basis for the Soyuz-ST rocket, which made its maiden flight from Kourou in French Guiana this year. The Soyuz-ST is optimised to fly from Kourou, and also incorporates a flight termination system and a modified telemetry system.<\/p>\n
The launch of the Soyuz-ST carried two Galileo IOV-M1 satellites into orbit.<\/p>\n
The core stage of the Soyuz-2, the Blok-A, is powered by a single RD-108A engine. This is augmented for the first two minutes of flight by four boosters, each of which is powered by an RD-107A engine. The Fregat Upper Stage, is powered by an S5.98M engine, which uses unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine as propellant and nitrogen tetroxide as an oxidiser.<\/p>\n
The Fregat first flew in 2000, and has been used on Soyuz-U, Soyuz-FG, Soyuz-2 and Zenit rockets.<\/p>\n
Soyuz 2.1b Failure\/Internal Issues:<\/p>\n
There are conflicting reports as to the cause of the failure, with the latest rumor in the Russian media claiming the fairing did not jettison. However, most reports point to a serious failure of the third stage \u2013 a claim made by one of the leading Russian reporters, Analoly Zak of RussianSpaceWeb.<\/p>\n
\u201cAccording to industry sources, the analysis of available telemetry on the fuel line pressure before the entrance to the engine\u2019s injection system indicated a possible bulging of the combustion chamber No. 1, leading to its burn through and a catastrophic fuel leak.\u201d<\/p>\n
Click here for Russian Articles: http:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/news\/russian\/<\/p>\n
The resulting incident led to the remains of the vehicle and spacecraft \u2013 which was designed to provide communication between ships, planes and coastal stations on the ground \u2013 crashing to Earth, with some reports claiming debris landed in a populated area, with one large piece crashing through the roof of a house in Siberia. No injuries have yet been reported.<\/p>\n
Despite the Soyuz TMA-03M post-docking media briefing opening with a request to focus questions on the successful arrival of Oleg Kononenko, Andr\u00e9 Kuipers and Don Pettit, journalists soon asked questions about the earlier failure.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Z63.jpg\" "\\"Z6\\"")
Mr Popovkin initially seemed open to discuss the failure, noting the engine in question was made in 2009, and while commissions had been installed \u2013 likely relating to the fallout from other failure investigations \u2013 \u201cnot everything can be checked off blueprints\u201d.<\/p>\nMr Popovkin was surprisingly frank in his remarks about an Agency he took over from Mr Anatoly Perminov earlier this year, using words such as \u201ccrisis\u201d, as much as such comments were passed on via an interpreter.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis proves there\u2019s areas of the program which are in a sort of a crisis. Even now, I can probably say the problem is with the engine, but to be more certain we will look at the telemetry. By (Saturday) will be have results which we will be able to report,\u201d<\/p>\n
Then came the somewhat shocking revelation that the Russian space program is \u2013 as much as it had been feared \u2013 seriously struggling with its need to modernize and optimize, likely driven by both funding shortages and demographics.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, there are problems. We need to optimize and modernize \u2013 we need to modernize the tracking system (for example),\u201d the Roscosmos chief added. \u201cBut we\u2019re only at a level of 33 percent (in this process). We need to modernize all the facilities because we can\u2019t keep an eye on everything.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s also the ageing of human resources, given the trouble we had in the 1990s when quite a lot of people left and nobody came to replace them \u2013 they should have come in the 90s.\u201d<\/p>\n
Citing the demographic imbalance, Mr Popovkin noted that they would have to trust their young workers more, while \u201creplacing lots of leaders and heads\u201d.<\/p>\n
Potential ISS Impact:<\/p>\n
These problems are extremely untimely for NASA, who have put all their eggs into one Russian basket for their ability to launch astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS).<\/p>\n
A return to domestic crewed launch ability \u2013 via NASA\u2019s Commercial Crew drive \u2013 could be as far away as 2017, while there is no going back on the almost stubborn insistence on ensuring the retired Shuttle fleet had their wings clipped to avoid any restart capability, leaving the United States with no choice but to continue to pay Russia hundreds of millions of dollars to buy seats on Soyuz launch vehicles.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/A1071.jpg\" "\\"A1071\\"")
\u201cFrom today, the era of the Soyuz has started in manned spaceflight, the era of reliability,\u201d Roscosmos proudly proclaimed, just prior to the failure of the Progress vehicle, which almost resulted in the decrewing of the $100 billion outpost.<\/p>\nAnd now this latest failure may also impact on the Station, on the day the ISS finally returned to a six member crew. This impact will depend on the actual root cause of the failure, and its commonality with the Soyuz used for TMA and Progress launches.<\/p>\n
Not all Soyuz vehicles are alike, with different configurations and engines used on the variants. For example, the Progress resupply ships are launched by the Soyuz-U, Soyuz TMA-M is launched by the Soyuz-FG, whereas the now-lost Meridian satellite was launched by Soyuz 2-1b.<\/p>\n
With differences \u2013 such as combustion chamber injectors and avionics \u2013 between the vehicles, some specific failures may not result in the grounding of all variants of the Soyuz.<\/p>\n
However, if the third stage engine is confirmed to be the issue, this could have a more severe impact, given it was the third stage engine \u2013 despite using a different engine \u2013 which failed during the Progress M-12M launch, potentially pointing to a larger issue with the launch vehicle, such as plumbing and lines.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Z71.jpg\" "\\"Z7\\"")
With information pointing to the failure occurring at 134 seconds into the 270 second burn of the third stage, the issue could be related to a plumbing failure, causing a fuel leak, which would have either resulted in the engine shutting down, or even exploding.<\/p>\nThe Progress failure was later revealed as being attributed to a malfunction in the gas generator of the third stage\u2019s RD-0110 engine, and while the RD-0124 involved with Friday\u2019s Soyuz is a different design from the RD-0110, there are plenty of failure modes that could also impact the Soyuz-FG \u2013 such a procedure failure in launch vehicle manufacture, engine manufacture, or launch processing.<\/p>\n
Such a common issue across the variants of the Soyuz launch vehicles would be speculation, but such failure modes could exist via fuel contamination or incorrect fuelling.<\/p>\n
If the problem is related to flight test\/design issues with the new RD-0124 engine, unrelated to the RD-0110, the crew launch Soyuz-FG and Progress carrier Soyuz-U may avoid any potential grounding, which \u2013 if long term \u2013 would have serious impacts on the ISS\u2019 ability to remain at a six person crew.<\/p>\n
Additional information will be added when Roscosmos reveal their telemetry findings on Saturday. Thanks to Jonathan McDowell for his additional insight used in this article.<\/p>\n
(Images via Roscosmos, NASA and Starsem).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Just hours before the Soyuz TMA-03M successfully docked with the International Space Station (ISS), another Russian Soyuz launch vehicle failed during its task to loft the Meridian-5 satellite into orbit. The failure became the main subject of a post-docking media briefing for TMA-03M, resulting in Roscosmos chief Vladimir Popovkin portraying serious internal issues at the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[233,1302],"class_list":["post-40244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-iss","tag-soyuz"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40244"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40244\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}