The second off-target,
ballistic Soyuz landing in a row raises a troubling prospect for the future of
Americans in space aboard the International Space Station.
When the shuttle program
shuts down in 2010, the U.S. will rely on the Russians to deliver crews to the
space station. But if NASA deems the Soyuz spacecraft unreliable or dangerous,
there is nothing to replace it for U.S. astronaut travel to the space station.
On Saturday, a Soyuz
capsule carrying NASA's Peggy Whitson, cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and South
Korea spaceflight participant, So-Yeon Yi, had a technical problem and fell
to Earth like a rock, landing some 260 miles off course. The landing came
after a steeper-than normal re-entry caused the crew to endure dangerous forces
up to 10 times that of gravity, twice the normal re-entry pressure.
No cause is apparent, and
teams from NASA and the Russian space agency have yet to begin investigating
the cause of the apparent re-entry system failure.
"It's going to take
several days for them to get (the capsule) back to Moscow," said NASA
spokesman Nicole Cloutier. "It does have a flight recorder."
A Soyuz spacecraft
automatically makes a ballistic re-entry if its guidance systems fails.
Cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko confirmed that the craft automatically made the
switch to the emergency re-entry system, but he could not say why.
"There was no action
of the crew that led to this," Malenchenko said. "Time will tell what
went wrong."
Though tough on the crew, a
ballistic re-entry is relatively safe, said U.S. space station program manager
Mike Suffredini. A similar re-entry affected the last
Soyuz return in October 2007, which carried two cosmonauts and a Malaysian
space tourist.
The cause could be easily
found after an examination of the capsule's flight recorder.
"Of course, if it's
related to the last problem, that'll add data," Suffredini said.
The Russians immediately
promised an investigation. And so far there has been no talk of grounding the
Soyuz fleet.
"It's still a
functional spacecraft. The incidents don't rise to the level of requiring a
stand down," said James Oberg, an authority on the Russian and Chinese
launch systems and consultant for NBC News.
The Russians are preparing
to increase their launch rate from two per year to four per year to provide for
a six-person crew on the expanded space station in 2009. Oberg questioned
whether the production increase is somehow contributing to more problems.
"Has doubling the
production overstressed their production safety and quality?" he asked.
A ballistic landing also
occurred on May 3, 2003. The most recent ballistic landing was in October
2007.
These incidents, coupled
with a cabin leak on re-entry in October 2005, raise questions about the Soyuz'
otherwise long reputation for reliability. A total failure of the Soyuz on
Saturday would have been tragic on many levels.
The spacecraft carried beloved
U.S. astronaut Whitson, the first woman station commander and holder of the
U.S. record for the most time in space. The craft also carried revered
cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, who has spent more than 500 days in space, and a South
Korea spaceflight participant, whose $20 million trip was paid for by the
South Korean government.
Aside from the loss of
life, if a fatal flaw developed in the Soyuz spacecraft, the U.S. and Russia
would have no other way to bring crews to and from the space station.
And if the Soyuz program
were grounded, the shuttle program could not be extended beyond 2010, when NASA
will divert its funding to the Constellation program -- a capsule designed to
go the space station, to the moon and on to Mars.
"The decision is
already behind us," said Wayne Hale, former shuttle program manager and
now deputy associate NASA administrator.
Substantial funding
increases would be necessary to revive the shuttle, a proposal neither
President Bush nor any of the three presidential contenders supports.
"We have the parts we
need on hand, with adequate spares to fly the manifest that's ahead of us, the
next 11 flights," Hale said last week. "But beyond that, if you want
to restart production (of the shuttle), you are probably too late."
Published under license
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