James Oberg has an interesting analysis of last month’s off-course Soyuz landing over at IEEE Spectrum. Although the investigation is ongoing, Oberg has examined internal NASA documents that indicate the near tragedy was caused by an incomplete separation between the descent and equipment modules.
“During the landing, space officials at mission control in Moscow and at the recovery site seriously worried for at least half an hour—and some even believed, briefly, that the crew had been killed. The landing seemed to be a replay of a near disaster from almost 40 years ago, and it threatened to have the first Russian in-flight fatalities since 1971.
“Although the officials’ worries soon turned out to be ill-founded, an examination of the craft’s flight path indicates that catastrophe had not been far off. Total disaster was avoided not by any real-time actions of the crew or ground teams but instead by the ingenious design and robust construction of the spacecraft.”
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