...Did you notice the crushed pitch thruster housing in the picture? I
guess we'll have to wait to see if the report shows up online, to see if
this is normal landing impact damage or something else.

Even after the Russian is translated to English it's hard to figure out
exactly what they are talking about.

http://ruspace.blogspot.com/2008/01/soyuz-tma-10-ballistic-landing-cause.html

?The Commission of Inquiry for the reasons for the contingency situation
finished its work and established that the reason for ballistic descent
was
the cable fault, which connected the control panel with the Soyuz descent
equipment,? said Lopota. According to him, RKK Energiya will take all
measures to avoid a repetition of this situation.

Soyuz descent equipment = Service Module

Control panel, in the Capsule

cable fault, quick disconnect didn't disconnect from the capsule?

Quick disconnect on the right side of picture, wires and a couple of gas
pipes. So the capsule separated from the service module, but the interface
gas and control cable did not. It's being held together by the wires and
pipes..
http://www.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/nk/forum-pic/TMA-11/200804190012HQ.jpg
...Did you notice the crushed pitch thruster housing in the picture? I
guess we'll have to wait to see if the report shows up online, to see if
this is normal landing impact damage or something else.

Sure looks like the inside of the crushed thruster housing has a lot of
soot
some gray areas too, probably got crushed by the service module as it left
in the upper atmosphere.

Here's a nice on-orbit picture of the control cable, periscope (window in
the landing photo) and pitch thruster housing.
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/station/crew-9/hires/iss009e05544.jpg

Back to the article,
http://ruspace.blogspot.com/2008/01/soyuz-tma-10-ballistic-landing-cause.html
...Ivanov explained. ?The descent along the ballistic trajectory without
the
participation of lift is comparable with a falling stone, but if we
permitted it to fall like a stone, then the overload would reach a limit
incompatible with human life. Therefore we constantly rotated the descent
vehicle around its axis, it achieved approximately one revolution after
half a minute, what contributed (to transfer) the
life-threatening ?foot-head? overload into the more acceptable
?chest-spin?
overload due to the centrifugal force,? said the ballistics chief.

foot-head = upside-down

chest-spin = slow roll

The translation of the ballistics chief seems confused, or he is, the
centrifugal force has nothing to do with anything at 2 RPM. The slow roll
is equivalent to an aircraft doing a "barrel roll". The lift is constant
during the roll, but the sum of the lift during one revolution is zero.
Much better than an upside-down (foot-head) 12+ gee entry.

The Russians are using off center line CG and aerodynamics to give the
capsule the proper angle of attack.
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/station/crew-13/hires/jsc2006e42731.jpg
Here you can see one of the horizontal stabilizer above the crew hatch.
The
other horizontal stabilizer is on the parachute hatch, it's equivalent to
the horizontal stabilizer on the tail of an aircraft. Fixed CG offset from
centerline, fixed horizontal stabilizer (with no elevator), equals fixed
lift on the capsule. Interesting that the pitching moments generated by
the
CG shift and the horizontal stabilizer are in opposite directions.
Probably
gives them a larger CG range with minimal lift variation.

Kind of surprising that no one has added a rudder to their capsule yet.
Add
a movable rudder, then the RCS jets would no longer be necessary for
entry,
simplifying the entry vehicle further. Movable elevators (horizontal
stabilizer) to give better lift control for a more precise landing. Or, a
couple of elevons, two control surfaces giving pitch and roll control with
no heating problems.

Back to the article again,
http://ruspace.blogspot.com/2008/01/soyuz-tma-10-ballistic-landing-cause.html
...According to the 15th Expedition commander Fyodor Yurchikhin, ?The
rotation of the descent vehicle was sharp, rigid, with strong vestibular
irritation...

Sure sounds like the TMA-10 came in hatch first (like an aircraft flying
tail first) and righted itself very quickly once the service module came
off. I wonder what changes occurred between TMA-9 and TMA-10/11 to cause
the problem, and what they fixed (or unchanged) on the current one,
TMA-12?

I guess it should be expected to have a repeat of the same problem when
there is only one type of lifeboat at ISS, because the missions do
overlap.
--
Craig Fink
Courtesy E-Mail Welcome @ WeBeGood@GMail.Com

I notice Peggy has been very silent on the subject though the others have
been more candid. Maybe its a policy thing.

Have we not been here before though. I seem to recall this exact problem
having almost cased disaster before.

I think I eluded to this in the original thread on this mishap.

What worries me is that if they keep getting this failure to sheer
connections, then there is obviously some kind of underlying problem in
this area. Maybe not enough redundancy in the system. Not knowing what the
design is, its hard to know if it has multiple paths, and multiple sheer
devices
with the required failsafe logic to make sure it actually works.


I notice Peggy has been very silent on the subject though the others have
been more candid. Maybe its a policy thing.
Brian

"Brian Gaff" <briang1@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message
news:NHWQj.15998$yD2.3924@text.news.virginmedia.com...

I notice Peggy has been very silent on the subject though the others have
been more candid. Maybe its a policy thing.

Maybe it's a career thing and she doesn't want to end hers.