Accidents and emergencies on Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Six of the worst space disasters (photos, videos)

In the mid-1980s, the American space program was at the height of its power. After winning the “lunar race,” the United States established its opinion of its unconditional leadership in space.

Another proof of this was the space exploration program using the Space Shuttle. Space shuttles, whose operation began in 1981, made it possible to launch a large amount of payload into orbit, return failed vehicles from orbit, and also make flights with a crew of up to 7 people. No other country in the world had similar technologies at that time.

Unlike the USSR, the US manned program did not experience accidents with human casualties during flights. More than 50 expeditions in a row ended successfully. Both the country's leadership and ordinary people have the opinion that the reliability of American space technology serves as an absolute guarantee of safety.

The idea arose that in the new conditions, anyone who had normal health and had completed a not too difficult and long course of training could fly into space.

"Teacher in Space"

U US President Ronald Reagan The idea arose to send an ordinary school teacher into space. The teacher was supposed to teach several lessons from orbit to increase children's interest in mathematics, physics, geography, as well as science and space exploration.

The “Teacher in Space” competition was announced in the USA, which received 11 thousand applications. There were 118 candidates in the second round, two from each state and dependent areas.

The final results of the competition were announced solemnly in the White House. US Vice President George W. Bush July 19, 1985 announced: the winner was 37-year-old Sharon Christa McAuliffe, second place was taken by the 34-year-old Barbara Morgan. Krista became the main candidate for the flight, Barbara became her backup.

Christa McAuliffe, a mother of two who taught high school history, English and biology, cried tears of joy as the competition results were announced. Her dream came true.

She explained to her loved ones, whose pride in Krista alternated with anxiety: “This is NASA, even if something goes wrong, they can fix everything at the last moment.”

After completing a three-month training program, Christa McAuliffe was included in the crew of the Challenger spacecraft, which was scheduled to go into orbit in January 1986.

Anniversary start

The Challenger flight was supposed to be the anniversary, the 25th launch within the Space Shuttle program. Experts sought to increase the number of expeditions into orbit - after all, fabulous money was allocated for the project with the expectation that over time the shuttles would pay off and begin to make a profit. In order to achieve this, it was planned to reach a rate of 24 flights per year by 1990. That is why the program managers were extremely irritated by the words of specialists about serious shortcomings in the design of the ships. Minor faults had to be eliminated almost before every start, and fears arose that sooner or later everything could end in big trouble.

In addition to Christa McAuliffe, the STS-51L crew included Commander Francis Scobie, first pilot Michael Smith as well as astronauts Allison Onizuka, Judith Resnick, Ronald McNair And Gregory Jarvis.

Challenger crew. Photo: www.globallookpress.com

In addition to school lessons from orbit, the mission program included launching satellites into orbit and observing Halley's Comet.

Initially, the launch from the Cape Canaveral Space Center was scheduled for January 22, but was then postponed several times until January 28 became the new date.

That morning there was also a suspicion that the flight would have to be rescheduled - it was very cold in Florida, the temperature dropped below zero, and icing appeared at the launch site. The management decided not to cancel the start, but simply postpone it by a couple of hours. Upon a new inspection, it turned out that the ice had begun to melt, and the go-ahead was given for the start.

"Critical situation"

The final launch was scheduled for 11:38 local time on January 28, 1986. Relatives and friends of the astronauts, colleagues and students of Christa McAuliffe gathered at the cosmodrome, waiting for the moment when the first teacher would go on a space journey.

At 11:38 a.m., Challenger lifted off from Cape Canaveral. In the stands where the audience was, rejoicing began. The television camera showed a close-up of the faces of Christa McAuliffe's parents as they saw off their daughter on the flight - they smiled, happy that their girl's dream had become a reality.

The announcer commented on everything that happened at the cosmodrome.

52 seconds after launch, the Challenger began its maximum acceleration. The ship's commander, Francis Scobie, confirmed the start of acceleration. These were the last words heard from the shuttle.

At the 73rd second of the flight, spectators watching the launch saw the Challenger disappear in a white cloud of explosion.

At first the spectators did not understand what had happened. Someone was scared, someone applauded in admiration, believing that everything was happening according to the flight program.

The announcer also seemed to think everything was fine. “1 minute 15 seconds. The ship's speed is 2900 feet per second. Flew a distance of nine nautical miles. The height above the ground is seven nautical miles,” the presenter continues to say.

As it turned out later, the announcer was not looking at the monitor screen, but was reading a previously drawn up launch script. A couple of minutes later, he announced a “critical situation,” and then said the terrible words: “The Challenger exploded.”

No chance of salvation

But by this moment, the audience had already understood everything - debris from what had recently been the most modern spacecraft in the world was falling from the sky into the Atlantic Ocean.

A search and rescue operation was launched, although it was initially called a rescue operation only formally. The ships of the Space Shuttle project, unlike the Soviet Soyuz, were not equipped with emergency rescue systems that could save the lives of astronauts during launch. The crew was doomed.

The operation to recover debris that fell into the Atlantic Ocean continued until May 1, 1986. In total, about 14 tons of debris were recovered. About 55% of the shuttle, 5% of the cabin and 65% of the payload remained on the ocean floor.

The cabin with the astronauts was raised on March 7. It turned out that after the destruction of the ship's structures, the stronger cabin survived and continued to rise upward for several seconds, after which it began to fall from a great height.

It was not possible to determine the exact moment of death of the astronauts, but it is known that at least two - Allison Onizuka and Judith Resnik - survived the moment of the disaster. Experts discovered that they had turned on personal air supply devices. What happened next depends on whether the cabin was depressurized after the destruction of the shuttle. Since personal devices do not supply air under pressure, the crew soon lost consciousness when depressurized.

If the cabin remained sealed, then the astronauts died when they hit the surface of the water at a speed of 333 km/h.

American "maybe"

America experienced the deepest shock. Flights under the Space Shuttle program were suspended indefinitely. To investigate the crash, US President Ronald Reagan appointed a special commission led by Secretary of State William Rogers.

The destruction of the aircraft was caused by damage to the o-ring of the right solid fuel booster during take-off. Damage to the ring caused a hole to burn out in the side of the accelerator, from which a jet stream flowed towards the external fuel tank. This led to the destruction of the tail mount of the right solid rocket booster and the supporting structures of the external fuel tank. Elements of the complex began to shift relative to each other, which led to its destruction as a result of abnormal aerodynamic loads.

As an investigation showed, NASA had known about defects in the o-rings since 1977, long before the first flight of the Space Shuttle program. But instead of making the necessary changes, NASA treated the problem as an acceptable risk of equipment failure. That is, to put it simply, the department’s specialists, hypnotized by past successes, hoped for an American “maybe.” This approach cost the lives of 7 astronauts, not to mention billions of dollars in financial losses.

21 years later

The Space Shuttle program was resumed after 32 months, but the previous confidence in it was no longer there. There was no longer any talk about payback and profit. The year 1985 remained a record year for the program, when 9 flights were made, and after the death of the Challenger, plans to increase the number of launches to 25-30 per year were no longer remembered.

After the disaster on January 28, 1986, NASA closed the Teacher in Space program and Christa McAuliffe's understudy, Barbara Morgan, returned to teaching school. However, everything she experienced made the teacher dream of finishing the job she started. In 1998, she re-enlisted as an astronaut and in 2002 was assigned as a flight specialist on the shuttle STS-118, which was scheduled to fly to the ISS in November 2003.

However, on February 1, 2003, the second shuttle disaster occurred - the Columbia spacecraft with 7 astronauts on board died during descent from orbit. Barbara Morgan's flight was postponed.

And yet she went into space. On August 8, 2007, 21 years after the loss of Challenger, teacher Barbara Morgan reached orbit on the USS Endeavor. During her flight, she conducted several communications with school classes, including the McCall-Donnelly School, where she taught for a long time. Thus, she completed a project that was not destined to be realized in 1986.

In the USSR, they preferred to remain silent about the victims of the space race.

Challenger disaster © wikipedia.com

The history of space exploration by two superpowers - the USA and the USSR - was written in blood. During this time, dozens of astronauts died.

website recalls the high-profile disasters of the American shuttles and the lesser-known cases of the death of Soviet cosmonauts.

AccidentApolloA-13

After American astronauts successfully landed on the Moon twice using Apollo spacecraft, in 1970 the United States sent Apollo 13 into space, the third expedition whose goal was to land on the lunar surface.

For the first two days, John Swigert, Fred Hayes and commander James Lovell flew to the moon without incident. But on the third day, April 13, 1970, an oxygen tank exploded on Apollo 13. The main engine was damaged. The crew saw a stream of oxygen flowing from the ship into outer space. “Houston, we have a problem,” the astronauts gloomily reported to the command center.

There was no longer any talk of landing on the moon. However, Apollo 13 had to fly around the satellite, performing a gravity maneuver, and only then turn back to Earth.

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To save energy, the astronauts moved from the main cabin to the lunar module and turned off almost all systems, including heating, computers and lights.

On the fourth day after the accident, the level of carbon dioxide in the cabin began to increase. The temperature dropped to +11 degrees, but since the astronauts did not move, it seemed to them that the cabin was barely above freezing. The lunar module's engine had to be turned on four times to adjust its course to Earth, at the risk of losing all energy.

But, despite all the difficulties, on April 17, Apollo 13 entered the earth's atmosphere and successfully splashed down in the Pacific Ocean. The crew was picked up by an American ship and taken to Hawaii. In 1995, Hollywood made a film based on this story.

Rescue of the Apollo 13 crew: astronaut Fred Hayes is picked up by a lifeboat

Soyuz-1 disaster: one victim

In 1967, the USSR lagged behind the United States in the space race. For two years before this, the States had conducted manned space flights one after another, but the Union had not conducted a single one.

Despite the fact that previously unmanned Soyuz launches had ended in accidents, politicians were in a hurry to launch the Soyuz-1 spacecraft into orbit with an astronaut on board at any cost. This astronaut was 40-year-old Vladimir Komarov. He knew the ship he was ordered to fly on well and was aware of the extent of its unpreparedness.

Problems in Soyuz-1 began immediately after entering orbit: one of the ship’s solar panels did not open, then both orientation systems failed. Komarov did the impossible, managing to manually guide the uncontrollable ship onto a landing trajectory.

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But during landing, at an altitude of seven kilometers, both parachutes failed - the technology was violated during their manufacture at the plant. The ship with the astronaut collided with the ground in the Orenburg region at a speed of 60 m/sec.

“After an hour of excavation, we discovered Komarov’s body among the wreckage of the ship. At first it was difficult to make out where the head was, where the arms and legs were. Apparently, Komarov died when the ship hit the ground, and the fire turned his body into a small charred lump measuring 30 by 80 centimeters,” recalled the commander-in-chief of the Soviet Air Force for space, Nikolai Kamanin.

Komarov’s wife was not officially explained the reasons for her husband’s death, only receiving a death certificate with the entry “extensive burns to the body,” and the place of death was listed as the city of Shchelkovo. She gradually learned more details at receptions in the Kremlin, where she was invited as the widow of an astronaut.

Death of the Apollo 1 crew: three victims

The victorious story of the American Apollo lunar mission began with tragedy. In 1967, a month before the planned launch, a fire occurred in Apollo 1.

This happened during ground tests at the Kennedy Space Center. Inside the ship was a crew of three astronauts: Vigil Griss, Edward White and Roger Chaffee. The cabin was filled not with air, but with pure oxygen.

The fire was caused by the engineers' shortcomings and a chain of accidents: some wires were poorly insulated, and one of the mechanics left a wrench inside. This metal key was apparently moved by one of the astronauts, coming into contact with the wiring. A short circuit occurred, oxygen ignited and the interior lining, which contained many flammable materials, caught fire. To top it all off, the astronauts were unable to open the hatch.

People burned in 14 seconds. The last thing heard from the burning ship was 31-year-old Chaffee screaming "We're burning! Get us out of here!"

Soyuz-11 disaster: three victims

In June 1971, Soyuz-11 was launched into space with three cosmonauts on board - Georgy Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkov and Viktor Patsayev. The spacecraft docked with the Salyut orbital station, operated in orbit for 23 days, and then began returning to Earth.

On June 30, the descent vehicle successfully landed in Kazakhstan. But the search group that arrived at the landing site found all three astronauts dead.

The investigation showed that when the descent apparatus was separated from the ship, a ventilation valve opened and the compartment became depressurized. This valve was designed to allow air to flow into the cabin in the event of an unsuccessful landing, but for some reason it opened at an altitude of 150 km.

The astronauts did not have time to close the valve or even plug the small hole with their finger. The cabin was filled with fog, and the control panel was located at some distance from the seats - to reach it, you had to unfasten and get up from the seat. Just 20 seconds after depressurization, people lost consciousness.

The death of the astronauts could have been avoided if they had been wearing spacesuits. But at that time, the Soviet Soyuz spacecraft were designed for one cosmonaut, and three people were literally jammed into them, but it was necessary to send at least three, because that’s what the Americans did. The spacesuits did not fit in such tight spaces.

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After the deaths of Dobrovolsky, Volkov and Patsayev, the next Soyuz rockets flew into space with two cosmonauts in spacesuits.

Challenger shuttle disaster:seven victims

Despite the deaths of four Soviet cosmonauts, the Soyuz spacecraft ultimately proved to be less dangerous than the American shuttles. Two of NASA's five space shuttles have crashed.

Challenger completed nine successful flights. On January 28, 1986, dozens of reporters, schoolchildren and other spectators came to Cape Canaveral to watch the tenth shuttle launch. The launch was broadcast on satellite television. The shuttle crew included seven people, including one non-professional astronaut - a former teacher who won the right to fly into space in a competition.

The morning turned out to be cold - 2 degrees below zero, while the space shuttles were recommended to launch at a minimum of +11 degrees.

The accident occurred 73 seconds into the flight: one of the parts of the shuttle came off and pierced the fuel tank. The Challenger exploded in the sky in front of astonished spectators. Many were horrified, but most did not understand what had happened. Some even began to applaud, thinking that this was a planned disconnection of the boosters.

As it turned out, at least three astronauts were still alive after the explosion, as the bow section was torn off from the rest of the ship. Most likely, they immediately lost consciousness, because the cabin was depressurized and no air was supplied to them. In any case, those who survived the explosion were killed when pieces of the shuttle hit the water with enormous force.

Columbia shuttle disaster: seven victims

In February 2003, the space shuttle Columbia was returning from its 28th flight. There were seven people on board. In addition to the Americans, the astronauts included an Indian citizen and an Israeli.

NASA lost contact with the ship 16 minutes before its intended landing at Cape Canaveral in Florida. At this time the shuttle began to fall apart. The crash occurred at a speed of 20 thousand km/h. All seven astronauts died.

The fall of the debris was filmed on amateur cameras by random eyewitnesses to the tragedy. Almost immediately after the disaster, enterprising people began to pick up fragments of Columbia and sell them at online auctions.

The investigation showed that even during the launch, a piece of thermal insulation fell off the Columbia and damaged the ship's skin. This incident, which no one paid attention to, had tragic consequences 16 days later, during the landing.

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Let's remember that last year... In April, the last shuttle Discovery was sent from Cape Canaveral to the Washington Museum.

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On June 30, 1971, the first crew of the Salyut orbital space station in the history of astronautics, consisting of Georgy Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkov and Viktor Patsayev, died while returning to Earth. This tragic incident became the largest in the history of Russian cosmonautics - the entire crew died.

The Soviet and American space programs operated in conditions of extremely fierce competition. Each side strived at all costs to get ahead of the competitor and become the first. At first, the palm belonged to the USSR: the first launch of an artificial Earth satellite, the first launch of a man into space, the first man in outer space, the first flight of a female cosmonaut remained with the Soviet Union.

The Americans focused on the lunar race and won. Although the USSR had the theoretical opportunity to be the first, the program was too unreliable and the likelihood of disaster was too high, so the Soviet leadership did not dare to risk the lives of its cosmonauts. The Soviet lunar cosmonaut squad was transferred to training under the Docking program for the first flight to the orbital station.

Having safely landed on the Moon, the Americans proved to themselves that they too could do something, after which they became overly interested in the Earth’s satellite. The USSR at that time was already developing a project for a manned orbital station and won another victory in this area, launching its orbital station two years earlier than the United States did.

The Salyut station was planned to be launched into orbit by the beginning of the 24th Congress of the CPSU, but they were a little late. The station was launched into orbit only on April 19, 1971, ten days after the closing of the congress.

Almost immediately the first crew was sent to the orbital station. On April 24, five days after the station entered orbit, the Soyuz-10 spacecraft launched from Baikonur. On board were the ship's commander Vladimir Shatalov, flight engineer Alexey Eliseev and test engineer Nikolai Rukavishnikov.

This was a very experienced crew. Shatalov and Eliseev had already made two flights on Soyuz spacecraft; only Rukavishnikov was new to space. It was planned that Soyuz-10 would successfully dock with the orbital station, after which the cosmonauts would stay there for three weeks.

But everything didn't go as planned. The ship arrived safely at the station and began docking, but then problems began. The docking port pin engaged with the station, but the automation failed and the correction engines started working, causing the Soyuz to sway and the docking station to break.

There could no longer be any question of docking. Moreover, the entire Salyut station program was in jeopardy, since the cosmonauts did not know how to get rid of the docking pin. It could have been “shot”, but this would have made it impossible for any other ship to dock with the Salyut and would have meant the collapse of the entire program. Design engineers on Earth got involved and advised installing a jumper and using it to open the lock and remove the Soyuz pin. After several hours, this was finally done - and the astronauts went home.

Crew change

Preparations for the Soyuz-11 flight have begun. This crew was slightly less experienced than the previous one. None of the astronauts have been in space more than once. But the crew commander was Alexey Leonov, the first person to perform a spacewalk. In addition to him, the crew included flight engineer Valery Kubasov and engineer Pyotr Kolodin.

For several months they trained in docking both manually and automatically, because it was impossible to lose face for the second time in a row and return from the flight without docking.

At the beginning of June, the departure date was determined. At a meeting of the Politburo, the date was approved, as was the composition of the crew, which everyone unequivocally certified as the most skillful. But the unimaginable happened. Two days before the launch from Baikonur, sensational news came: during a standard pre-flight medical examination, doctors took Kubasov an X-ray and discovered a slight darkening in one of the lungs. Everything pointed to an acute tuberculosis process. True, it remained unclear how it could be viewed, because such a process does not develop in one day, and the astronauts underwent thorough and regular medical examinations. One way or another, Kubasov was not allowed to fly into space.

But both the State Commission and the Politburo have already approved the composition of the crew. What to do? After all, in the Soviet program, cosmonauts prepared for flights in groups of threes, and if one dropped out, then it was necessary to change the entire team, since it was believed that the threes had already worked together, and replacing one crew member would lead to a violation of consistency.

But, on the other hand, no one before in the history of astronautics has changed the crew less than two days before departure. How to choose the right solution in such a situation? There was a heated argument between the curators of the space program. Assistant to the Air Force Commander-in-Chief for Space Nikolai Kamanin insisted that Leonov’s crew was experienced and if you replace the retired Kubasov with Volkov, who also had experience in space flights, then nothing terrible would happen and the coordination of actions would not be disrupted.

However, designer Mishin, one of the developers of Salyut and Soyuz, advocated a complete change of the troika. He believed that the backup crew would be much better prepared and worked together than the main crew, but which had undergone a change in crew on the eve of the flight. In the end, Mishin’s point of view won. Leonov's crew was removed and replaced with a backup crew consisting of commander Georgy Dobrovolsky, flight engineer Vladislav Volkov and research engineer Viktor Patsaev. None of them had been in space, with the exception of Volkov, who had already flown on one of the Soyuz.

Leonov's crew took the removal from the flight very painfully. Boris Chertok later recalled the words of designer Mishin: “Oh, what a difficult conversation I had with Leonov and Kolodin!” he told us. “Leonov accused me of allegedly deliberately not wanting to replace Kubasov with Volynov in order to drag him into Volkov's space. Kolodin said that he felt this way until the last day that he would not be allowed into space under any pretext. Kolodin says: “I am a black sheep for them. They are all pilots, and I am a rocket scientist."

None of the angry cosmonauts could have imagined that an erroneous X-ray (Kubasov did not have any tuberculosis and later he successfully flew into space) saved their lives. But then the situation escalated to the limit. Chertok personally observed this picture: “At the State Commission, I found myself next to Kolodin. He sat with his head bowed low, nervously clenching and unclenching his fingers, nodules playing on his face. He was not the only one nervous. Both crews felt unwell. The first was shocked by the removal from the flight, the second - a sudden change in fate. After the flight, the second crew had to climb the marble stairs of the Kremlin Palace to fanfare, Glinka’s music, and receive the stars of the heroes. But there was no joy on their faces.

The Soyuz-11 spacecraft launched from Baikonur on June 6, 1971. The astronauts were worried not only because two of them had never been in space before, but also because of the magnificent farewell: the day before departure, the mourners staged a real rally at which they gave speeches.

Nevertheless, the launch of the ship took place as usual and without any failures. The astronauts successfully and without problems docked with the orbital station. It was an exciting moment, because they were to become the first earthlings on board the space station.

The cosmonauts were safely accommodated in the orbital station, which, although small, seemed huge to them after the incredibly cramped Soyuz. The first week they got used to the new environment. Among other things, the cosmonauts on the Salyut had a television connection with the Earth.

On June 16, an emergency occurred at the station. The astronauts smelled a strong burning smell. Volkov contacted Earth and reported the fire. The issue of urgent evacuation from the station was being considered, but Dobrovolsky decided to take his time and turn off some devices, after which the burning smell went away.

In total, the astronauts spent 23 days in orbit. They had a fairly rich program of research and experiments. In addition, they had to mothball the station for the next crews.

Catastrophe

In general, the flight went well - no one expected any emergencies. The crew made contact and conducted an orientation. As it turned out, this was the last communication session with the crew. As expected, at 1:35 the braking propulsion system was activated. At 1:47, the descent module separated from the instrument and service compartments. At 1:49 the crew was supposed to get in touch and report the successful separation of the descent module. The descent vehicle did not have a telemetry system and no one on Earth knew what was happening to the astronauts. It was planned that immediately after the separation Dobrovolsky would get in touch. The silence on the radio greatly surprised the experts, because the crew was very talkative and sometimes spoke to the Earth much more than the situation required.

The return to Earth took place as planned, without incidents, so at first there was no reason to believe that anything had happened to the crew. The most likely version was a malfunction of the radio equipment.

At 1:54 a.m., air defense systems detected the descent module. At an altitude of 7 thousand meters, the main parachute of the descent vehicle, which was equipped with an antenna, opened. The astronauts were required to contact either HF or VHF channels and report the situation. But they were silent, not responding to requests from Earth. This was already alarming; none of the safely returned Soyuz had problems with communication at this stage.

At about 2:05, the helicopters meeting the descent vehicle discovered it and reported it to the Mission Control Center. Ten minutes later the device landed safely. Externally, the device did not have any damage, but the crew still did not make contact and showed no signs of life. It was already clear that some kind of emergency had occurred, but there was still hope that the astronauts might have lost consciousness, but were still alive.

Immediately after landing, a meeting helicopter landed next to the device, and two minutes later the rescuers were already opening the hatch of the device. Chertok recalled: “The descent vehicle was lying on its side. There was no external damage. They knocked on the wall - no one responded. They quickly opened the hatch. All three were sitting in chairs in calm poses. There were blue spots on their faces. Streaks of blood from the nose and ears. They pulled out them from the SA. Dobrovolsky was still warm. Doctors continue artificial respiration."

Attempts by doctors to resuscitate the crew through artificial respiration and cardiac massage were unsuccessful. An autopsy showed that the crew died from decompression sickness caused by a sharp drop in pressure in the descent module.

Investigation

The circumstances of the death clearly indicated that the ship was depressurized. The very next day, studies of the descent module began, but all attempts to detect a leak failed. Kamanin recalled: “They closed the hatch and all other standard openings in the ship’s hull, created a pressure in the cabin that exceeded atmospheric pressure by 100 millimeters, and... did not find the slightest sign of leakage. They increased the excess pressure to 150, and then to 200 millimeters. Withstood the ship under such pressure for an hour and a half, we were finally convinced that the cabin was completely sealed."

But, if the device was completely sealed, then how could depressurization occur? There was only one option left. The leak may have occurred through one of the vent valves. But this valve opened only after the parachute opened to equalize the pressure, how could it open during the separation of the descent module?

The only theoretical option: the shock wave and explosions of the squibs during separation of the descent vehicle forced the valve opening squib to fire prematurely. But the Soyuz never had such problems (and in general there was not a single case of depressurization on both manned and unmanned ships). Moreover, after the disaster, experiments simulating this situation were carried out many times, but the valve never opened abnormally due to a shock wave or the detonation of squibs. No experiment has ever reproduced this situation. But, since there were no other explanations, this version was accepted as the official one. It was stipulated that this event was classified as extremely unlikely, since it could not be reproduced under experimental conditions.

The commission was able to approximately reconstruct the events that took place inside the descent module. After the normal separation of the apparatus, the cosmonauts discovered depressurization, as the pressure was rapidly dropping. They had less than a minute to find and eliminate her. Crew commander Dobrovolsky checks the hatch, but it is sealed. Trying to detect a leak by sound, the astronauts turn off radio transmitters and equipment. Most likely, they managed to detect the leak, but were no longer strong enough to close the valve. The drop in pressure was too strong, and within a minute the astronauts lost consciousness, and after about two minutes they were dead.

Everything would have been different if the crew had spacesuits. But the Soviet cosmonauts returned in the descent module without them. Both Korolev and Mishin opposed this. The suits were very bulky, as was the life support equipment they required, and the ships were already too cramped. Therefore, we had to choose: either an additional crew member, or spacesuits, or a radical reconstruction of the ship and the descent module.

The dead cosmonauts were buried in the Kremlin wall. At that time, it was the largest disaster in space in terms of the number of victims. For the first time, the entire crew died. The tragedy of Soyuz-11 led to the fact that flights under this program were frozen for more than two years.

During this time, the program itself was radically revised. Since then, astronauts have been required to return back wearing protective suits. In order to gain more space in the lander, it was decided to abandon the third crew member. The layout of the controls was changed so that the astronaut could reach all the most important buttons and levers without getting up.

After modifications were made, the Soyuz program established itself as one of the most reliable and is still operating successfully.

September 11, 2013 upon the return of cosmonauts from the International Space Station (ISS) on the Soyuz TMA-08M spacecraft. Part of the way the astronauts “fly by touch.” In particular, the crew did not receive parameters about their altitude and only learned from the reports of the rescue service what altitude they were at.

May 27, 2009 The Soyuz TMA-15 spacecraft was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. On board the ship were Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko, European Space Agency astronaut Frank De Winne and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Robert Thirsk. During the flight, temperature control problems arose inside the Soyuz TMA-15 manned spacecraft, which were eliminated using a thermal control system. The incident did not affect the well-being of the crew. On May 29, 2009, the spacecraft docked with the ISS.

August 14, 1997 During the landing of Soyuz TM-25 with the crew of EO-23 (Vasily Tsibliev and Alexander Lazutkin), the soft landing engines fired prematurely, at an altitude of 5.8 km. For this reason, the landing of the spacecraft was hard (landing speed was 7.5 m/s), but the astronauts were not injured.

January 14, 1994 After the undocking of Soyuz TM-17 with the crew of EO-14 (Vasily Tsibliev and Alexander Serebrov) during a flyby of the Mir complex, an off-design approach and collision of the ship with the station occurred. The emergency did not have serious consequences.

April 20, 1983 The Soyuz T-8 spacecraft launched from the 1st site of the Baikonur cosmodrome with cosmonauts Vladimir Titov, Gennady Strekalov and Alexander Serebrov on board. For the ship's commander, Titov, this was his first mission into orbit. The crew had to work for several months on board the Salyut-7 station and conduct a lot of research and experiments. However, failure awaited the astronauts. Due to the non-opening of the antenna of the Igla rendezvous and docking system on the ship, the crew was unable to dock the ship to the station, and on April 22, the Soyuz T-8 landed on Earth.

April 10, 1979 The Soyuz-33 spacecraft launched with a crew consisting of Nikolai Rukavishnikov and Bulgarian Georgiy Ivanov. While approaching the station, the ship's main engine failed. The cause of the accident was the gas generator feeding the turbopump unit. It exploded, damaging the backup engine. When the braking impulse was issued (April 12), the reserve engine operated with a lack of thrust, and the impulse was not fully issued. However, the SA landed safely, albeit with a significant flight distance.

October 9, 1977 The Soyuz-25 spacecraft was launched, piloted by cosmonauts Vladimir Kovalyonok and Valery Ryumin. The flight program included docking with the Salyut-6 spacecraft, which was launched into orbit on September 29, 1977. Due to an emergency situation, docking with the station was not possible the first time. The second attempt was also unsuccessful. And after the third attempt, the ship, having touched the station and pushed off by spring pushers, moved 8-10 m and hovered. The fuel in the main system had completely run out, and it was no longer possible to move further away using the engines. There was a possibility of a collision between the ship and the station, but after several orbits they separated to a safe distance. The fuel for issuing the braking impulse was taken from the reserve tank for the first time. The true reason for the docking failure could not be established. Most likely, there was a defect in the Soyuz-25 docking port (the serviceability of the station's docking port is confirmed by subsequent dockings with the Soyuz spacecraft), but it burned up in the atmosphere.

October 15, 1976 During the flight of the Soyuz-23 spacecraft with a crew consisting of Vyacheslav Zudov and Valery Rozhdestvensky, an attempt was made to dock with the Salyut-5 DOS. Due to the off-design mode of operation of the rendezvous control system, the docking was canceled and a decision was made to return the cosmonauts to Earth early. On October 16, the ship's vehicle splashed down on the surface of Lake Tengiz, covered with pieces of ice at an ambient temperature of -20 degrees Celsius. Salt water got onto the contacts of the external connectors, some of which remained energized. This led to the formation of false circuits and the passage of the command to shoot the cover of the reserve parachute system container. The parachute came out of the compartment, got wet and capsized the ship. The exit hatch ended up in the water, and the astronauts almost died. They were rescued by the pilots of a search helicopter, who, in difficult weather conditions, were able to detect the aircraft and, hooking it with a cable, dragged it to the shore.

April 5, 1975 The Soyuz spacecraft (7K-T No. 39) was launched with cosmonauts Vasily Lazarev and Oleg Makarov on board. The flight program provided for docking with the satellite Salyut-4 and work on board for 30 days. However, due to an accident during the activation of the third stage of the rocket, the ship did not enter orbit. The Soyuz made a suborbital flight, landing on a mountain slope in a deserted region of Altai not far from the state border with China and Mongolia. On the morning of April 6, 1975, Lazarev and Makarov were evacuated from the landing site by helicopter.

June 30, 1971 During the return to Earth of the crew of the Soyuz 11 spacecraft, due to premature opening of the respiratory ventilation valve, the descent module depressurized, which led to a sharp decrease in pressure in the crew module. As a result of the accident, all the astronauts on board died. The crew of the ship, launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, consisted of three people: ship commander Georgy Dobrovolsky, research engineer Viktor Patsayev and flight engineer Vladislav Volkov. During the flight, a new record was set at that time; the duration of the crew's stay in space was over 23 days.

April 19, 1971 The first orbital station "Salyut" was launched into orbit, and April 23, 1971 The Soyuz-10 spacecraft launched towards it with the first expedition consisting of Vladimir Shatalov, Alexey Eliseev and Nikolai Rukavishnikov. This expedition was supposed to work at the Salyut orbital station for 22-24 days. The Soyuz-10 TPK docked to the Salyut orbital station, but due to damage to the docking unit of the manned spacecraft during docking, the cosmonauts were unable to board the station and returned to Earth.

April 23, 1967 While returning to Earth, the Soyuz-1 parachute system failed, resulting in the death of cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov. The flight program planned for the docking of the Soyuz-1 spacecraft with the Soyuz-2 spacecraft and the transition from ship to ship through outer space for Alexei Eliseev and Evgeniy Khrunov, but due to the non-opening of one of the solar panels on Soyuz-1, the launch " Soyuz-2" was cancelled. Soyuz-1 made an early landing, but at the final stage of the ship’s descent to Earth, the parachute system failed and the descent module crashed east of the city of Orsk, Orenburg Region, killing the cosmonaut.

The material was prepared based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources

The tragedy that befell the American space shuttle Challenger became one of the largest space disasters of the 20th century. What caused it? And is everything so clear here?

Challenger history

In 1971, the construction of reusable spacecraft began in the United States - “Space Shuttle”, which means “space shuttle”. They had to shuttle between the Earth and its orbit, delivering various cargo to orbital stations. In addition, the tasks of the shuttles included installation and construction work in orbit and scientific research.
In July 1982, NASA received the Challenger shuttle. Before the fateful day, he had already experienced nine successful launches.
On January 28, 1986, the shuttle performed its next space flight. There were seven people on board: 46-year-old crew commander, Lieutenant Colonel Francis Richard Scobie; 40-year-old co-pilot, Captain Michael John Smith; 39-year-old scientific specialist, Lt. Col. Allison Shoji Onizuka; 36-year-old professional pilot and scientist Judith Arlen Resnick; 35-year-old physicist Ronald Erwin McNair; 41-year-old payload specialist, US Air Force Capt. Gregory Bruce Jarvis; and finally, 37-year-old payload specialist Sharon Christa Corrigan McAuliffe, a school teacher by profession, is the only civilian on the team.
Problems arose even before the flight. The launch of the ship was postponed several times due to various organizational, weather and technical problems. Finally it was scheduled for the morning of January 28th. The temperature by this time had dropped to -1°C. Engineers warned NASA management that this could affect the condition of the engine's O-rings and recommended delaying the launch again, but they were not listened to. In addition, the launch pad became icy, but by 10 o’clock in the morning the ice began to melt, and the launch still took place.

The disaster and its consequences

The launch took place at 11:40 a.m. from the Florida coast. Seven seconds later, gray smoke began to billow from the base of the right booster. At the 58th second of flight, the shuttle began to collapse. Liquid hydrogen began to leak from the external tank, and the pressure in it dropped to a critical level. 73 seconds into the flight, the tank completely collapsed, and the Challenger turned into a fireball. The crew members had no chance of salvation: there was no system for evacuating people on board.
The wreckage of the ship fell into the Atlantic Ocean. On March 7, the military discovered a cabin containing the bodies of the dead at the bottom of the sea. When examining the bodies, it turned out that for some time after the disaster, three astronauts - Smith, Onizuka and Resnik - were still alive, since the cabin was torn off from the tail section. They managed to turn on personal air supply devices. But they could no longer survive the strong impact on the water.
By May 1, 55% of the shuttle fragments were recovered from the water. The investigation into the causes of the crash was carried out for several months by the special secret Rogers Commission (named after its chairman, William Pierce Rogers). Its members included scientists, engineers, astronauts and military personnel.
The commission eventually submitted a report to President Reagan detailing the causes and circumstances of the Challenger's demise. It was stated there that the immediate cause of the incident was damage to the o-ring of the right solid fuel accelerator. It did not work when exposed to a shock load during engine starting, as it lost its elasticity due to the low temperature.
This led to the displacement of the ship's elements and its deviation from the given trajectory, as a result of which it was destroyed as a result of aerodynamic overloads.
The shuttle program was canceled for three years. The United States suffered huge losses amounting to $8 billion. NASA itself was also reorganized, in particular, a special department was created there, responsible for the safety of space travel.

Is the Challenger crash a fake?

Meanwhile, in addition to the official version about technical problems as the cause of the Challenger disaster, there is another, purely conspiracy theory. It says that the shuttle crash was a fake, staged by NASA. But why was it necessary to destroy the ship? Very simply, conspiracy theorists say, the shuttle program did not bring the expected effect, and in order not to lose face in front of the USSR, the main competitor in the field of space exploration, the United States decided to look for a reason to terminate the program and switch to traditional one-time launches. Although in fact shuttles continued to be built and launched, take, for example, the shuttle Columbia, which crashed in 2003...
What about the dead crew? The same conspiracy sources claim that there was no one on board the shuttle at the time of the explosion! And that the supposedly dead astronauts are actually alive. Thus, Richard Scobie allegedly lives under his own name and heads the company Cows in Trees ltd. Michael Smith teaches at the University of Wisconsin. Onizuka and McNair allegedly pretend to be their own twin brothers (isn't it strange that two crew members suddenly have twin brothers?) And Judith Resnick and Christa McAuliffe teach law - one at Yale, the other at Syracuse University. And only about Gregory Jarvis nothing is known. It is possible that he was the only one killed on board!
But it is clear that all these are just unfounded allegations, and there is no real evidence for this version. Well, how can a supposedly dead person live and work under his own name without it becoming known to the general public? Not to mention the “twins”. It is possible that there really are people in the United States with the same names as the dead astronauts, but this does not mean anything. So the only and main version of the Challenger disaster so far remains a technical oversight.