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I N Search of a Brave New World the Trouble with Soyuz Building the Gateway SpaceFlight A British Interplanetary Society publication Volume 60 No.12 December 2018 £5.00 I n search of a brave new world The trouble with Soyuz Building the Gateway 12> Shuttling to the Moon 634072 India in space 770038 9 CONTENTS Features 11 Heading for the Heavens Gurbir Singh reflects on India’s decision to place an astronaut in orbit. Coming off the back of stunning successes, is it driven by a sensible push to become only the fourth country to put a person in space – or just a cynical political move? 2 Letter from the Editor 14 ISS2 – Building the Lunar Gateway The Editor reviews current plans for assembling It’s good news that Ovchinin and an orbital base point for future Moon exploration, Hague survived the first Soyuz and considers the different orbit options. But is launch abort in 35 years of successful operations and that the Gateway a genuinely critical step on the road flights may be resuming soon. The to Mars, or merely a mirror of the ISS? reliance on Russian seats for partner astronauts to get to the 22 Shuttling to the Moon ISS will end in just over a year. It On the 50th anniversary of Apollo 8's historic would be inappropriate for the journey into lunar orbit, the Editor surveys the 11 great work the teams have done to potential for exploiting lunar resources and end on a sour note. describes Lockheed Martin's proposal for a I am delighted to publish this lander that could provide logistics support. month some “required reading” from Stephen Ashworth looking 26 A new age of Enlightenment [on Mars?] ahead to challenges posed by the Known to BIS members and many others for his colonial and post-colonial periods incisive writing, Stephen Ashworth takes a look of human habitation on Mars. See my Opinion piece for reflections at the belief systems on Earth and considers on how we could learn much from their potential for adoption on Mars. What moral the Declaration of Independence principles will guide the first colonists – and how in the United States. might things change as Martian society evolves? 14 More news is coming out about the Lunar Gateway and about the advantages of such a facility Regulars rather than placing all dispersal points on the surface – the bottom 2 Behind the news of another gravity well! Poor quality control blamed for Soyuz failure Finally, I am delighted to publish an analysis by Gurbir Singh, 3 Opinion whose monumental work on the history of India’s space 6 ISS Report programme is out in print, 9 September – 8 October 2018 22 reflecting on India’s plan to place 34 Flashback a human in orbit. Is this a good idea; read and discover! The flight of Apollo 8, December 1968 36 Satellite Digest 551 – September 2018 40 Letters to the Editor The long wait / Impetus or inspiration? David Baker 42 Multi-media [email protected] The latest space-related books, games, videos 46 Society news / Diary 26 COVER: AN ARTIST IMAGINES THE SPACEX BIG FALCON ROCKET ON ITS WAY INTO SPACE / SPACEX SPACE INTO WAY ON ITS ROCKET BIG FALCON THE SPACEX IMAGINES ARTIST AN COVER: What’s happened/ What’s coming up OUR MISSION STATEMENT Editor David Baker, PhD, BSc, FBIS, FRHS Sub Editor Ann Page Creative Consultant Andrée Wilson Design & Production MP3 Media Promotion Gillian Norman Advertising Tel: +44 (0)20 7735 3160 Email: [email protected] The British Interplanetary Society Distribution Warners Group Distribution, The Maltings, Manor Lane, Bourne, Lincolnshire PE10 9PH, England Tel: +44 (0)1778 promotes the exploration and 391 000 Fax: +44 (0)1778 393 668 SpaceFlight, Arthur C. Clarke House, 27-29 South Lambeth Road, London SW8 1SZ, use of space for the benefit England Tel: +44 (0)20 7735 3160 Email: [email protected] www.bis-space.com Published monthly by the British Interplanetary Society, SpaceFlight is a publication that promotes the mission of the British of humanity, connecting people Interplanetary Society. Opinions in signed articles are those of the contributors and do not necessarily reflect the views of to create, educate and inspire, the Editor or the Council of the British Interplanetary Society. Registered Company No: 402498. Registered charity No: and advance knowledge in 250556. The British Interplanetary Society is a company limited by guarantee. Printed in England by Latimer Trend & Co. © 2018 British Interplanetary Society 2017 ISSN 0038-6340. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be reproduced all aspects of astronautics. or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording by any information storage or retrieval system without written permission for the Publishers. Photocopying permitted by license only. SpaceFlight Vol 60 December 2018 1 BEHIND THE NEWS NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine (right) talks to Nick Hague back at Baikonur shortly after the aborted landing. THE TROUBLE WITH SOYUZ Soyuz's failure has been blamed on poor quality control. Can the reputation of the Russian space programme survive such a cascade of troubles? SHORTLY AFTER LAUNCH at 2.40 pm local time on Carrying rookie NASA astronaut Nick Hague and 11 October from site 1/5 at Baikonur Cosmodrome, veteran cosmonaut Alexei Ovchinin, the launch the Soyuz-FG rocket carrying the Soyuz MS-10 vehicle was to have placed the Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft began to fail, triggering an automatic abort spacecraft in pursuit of the International Space as attitude excursions threatened a breakup of the Station with rendezvous just four orbits and six launch vehicle. The four boosters had separated as hours after lift-off. Instead it provided the first ascent planned and the core stage was under power when abort experienced by a NASA astronaut. After the abort occurred, releasing the spacecraft and docking, the two crewmembers were to have joined causing a train of events which saw separation of the the Expedition 57 team on board the ISS, occupying Orbital Module and the Service Module, allowing the the station when the existing crew returned on 13 Descent Module to fall free. This initiated a ballistic December, to welcome the following crew seven descent incurring accelerations no greater than 7 g days later. prior to deployment of the parachute recovery Before that, a Progress cargo-tanker was to have system and a safe touchdown 34 minutes later about been launched at the end of October and at the time 20 km east of Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan. of writing that was said to be still possible with 2 Vol 60 December 2018 SpaceFlight BEHIND THE NEWS In-flight TV showing the ascent of Soyuz MS-10 on a Soyuz-FG launcher with Ovchinin occupying the centre couch (left) and Hague to his left. Expedition 56 blasts off in June. It's successors weren't so lucky. Safely aborted, the crew are reunited with their families another two launch vehicles of this type set for flight TRENDS prior to the next crewed space mission to the ISS, Considerable time in pre-flight Soyuz training is thus using interim launches to re-qualify the vehicle. Russian spent in preparation for contingency situations and But Russian sources tell SpaceFlight that there will the high safety record of the Soviet and Russian be a quick turnaround for this and NASA’s boss Jim sources tell crewed space programme is a product of that. Bridenstine concurs. During the Soviet era the space programme was Of the experience itself, Nick Hague was highly SpaceFlight under considerable pressure from the political complementary of the malfunction detection system that there will leadership but within the engineering fraternity in and the way in which the abort system provided a both that era and the post-Soviet period, safety has safe means of recovery: be a quick been a consistent part of high-risk endeavours, “The response time for that system is normalised into embedded abort capabilities. unbelievably fast, as soon as it senses anything turnaround for To date, more than 1,700 Soyuz rockets have wrong with the booster it’s trying to get us out of been launched since the current generation began IMAGES: (1) NASA, (2) AND (4) ESA, (3) ROSCOSMOS (3) ROSCOSMOS AND (4) ESA, (2) (1) NASA, IMAGES: there as quick as possible. That’s the system that this and NASA flights in 1966, lifting crewed and uncrewed payloads saved our lives and Alexei and I are standing now into orbit. The MS-10 launch was the 139th crewed because of that. I’ve got to send out a huge thanks boss Jim Soyuz spacecraft launch since the first on 23 April to the people who work on that system. It’s on every 1967. In that time there have been two previous rocket and for manned launches on the Soyuz, they Bridenstine failures with the launch vehicle. haven’t had to use that system for 35 years but it’s concurs The first was on 5 April 1975 when Soyuz 18A (a always been there and it’s always been ready and 7K-T type) carrying Lazarov and Makarov aborted we proved that last week so I’ve got a huge amount with a peak altitude of 192 km for a flight duration of of gratitude to all the people that work at the Samara 21 min 27 sec. Due the spacecraft’s Earthward rocket company and all the hard work that they put attitude orientation the abort motor accelerated the in making sure that it’s always ready for us.” velocity at re-entry inducing a load of 21 g. SpaceFlight Vol 60 December 2018 3 Vladimir Komarov lost his life.
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