Tag: Kazakhstan

Soyuz Floating On Clouds

The Soyuz TMA-03M spacecraft parachute contrasts with the cloud over Kazakhstan minutes before touchdown. Credit: Bill Ingalls/NASA
The Soyuz TMA-03M spacecraft parachute contrasts with the cloud over Kazakhstan minutes before touchdown. Credit: Bill Ingalls/NASA

In the early hours of Sunday morning (Pacific Time), a Russian cosmonaut, NASA astronaut and a European Space Agency astronaut returned to Earth after a 6-month stay on the International Space Station (ISS). Oleg Kononenko, Don Pettit and Andre Kuipers landed safely on the Kazakhstan steppes after the Soyuz TMA-03M spacecraft fired its soft landing rockets, blasting a cloud of dust into the air. But before touchdown and after the violence of reentry, NASA photographer Bill Ingalls was able to photograph this beautiful aerial view of the Soyuz and deployed parachute above the clouds. What a ride that must have been.

Read more about the successful Soyuz landing on Discovery News.

Special thanks to NASA astronaut Nicole Stott (@Astro_Nicole) for tweeting this photo!

The Russian Rocket-Powered Lander. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

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Let’s face it, Soyuz is getting old. It’s not that the spaceships themselves are getting rickety, there have been many incarnations, but the original Soyuz design was first conceived in 1966, so the Russian space agency (Roscosmos) is feeling it’s about time for a change. Soyuz has carried out the most manned missions into space out of any other space flight system (over 100 since the 1960s), so Russia has every right to be proud of its achievements.

So what system does Roscosmos want to replace Soyuz with? Perhaps a bigger version of Soyuz? Perhaps a revolutionary winged spaceplane? Nope. They are currently looking at plans for a Soyuz-esque capsule that will re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere much like before. But due to political pressure (spawning the need to move Roscosmos’ operations out of Kazakhstan), engineers must find a way to land the return vehicle in a minuscule area. Measuring only 2×5 km (yes, that’s a tight 10 km2), the landing strip will be as unforgiving as the new method to land the descent vehicle.

There will be no parachutes and no wings; the new concept will use a rocket-powered landing system alone, creating the first ever rocket-powered Earth-lander. If you thought that was a rather extreme design specification, you might be surprised to hear that engineers want to start firing these landing thrusters when the descent module is only 600-800 metres from the ground…
Continue reading “The Russian Rocket-Powered Lander. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?”