It was April 19, 1971. Salyut-1, the world’s first space station, was just launched into low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union. Two months later, on June 6, 1971, the Soyuz 11 [Soy-ooz] traveled to the orbiting space station with cosmonauts Georgi Dobrovolski, Vladislav Volkov, and Viktor Patsayev [Pat-sigh-yev] on board. On June 7, 1971, the Soyuz 11 was successfully launched into space, and three cosmonauts boarded the Salyut-1 space station without incident. They were there to conduct three weeks of experiments, such as growing Chinese cabbage and bulb onions, taking spectrograms of stars, and taking photographs of the snow and ice on the River Volga from orbit. They were now celebrated heroes who were plastered all over Soviet evening television. The Soyuz 11 undocked from the Salyut-1 on June 29, 1971, when the primary mission of the cosmonauts was completed. Three hours later, the spacemen fired their ship’s engine to return to Earth. Vladislav Volkov joked with flight control and requested that their customary gift of cognac be waiting at the landing site.
At an altitude of 160 kilometers (100 miles) and 29 minutes prior to touchdown, explosive charges detonated as planned to separate the orbital capsule and instrument modules of the Soyuz 11 spacecraft. The spacecraft was the cosmonaut’s only protection against the intense heat of re-entry. But then an unexpected event occurred… As soon as the other modules were jettisoned, the pressure inside the crew capsule dropped rapidly, and all the air inside began escaping into the space vacuum. Mission control, meanwhile, was unaware of the situation. An unsettling silence greeted attempts to contact the cosmonauts via VHF radio, and a sense of nervous unease crept into the room. Twenty-two minutes prior to touchdown, the capsule was detected entering Soviet airspace by radar. Mission controllers were aware that since the spacecraft was still re-entering the atmosphere, it would be encased in a plasma cocoon, rendering communication impossible. As the minutes passed, optimism was restored when the space capsule’s drogue parachute automatically deployed, followed by the larger main parachute canopy. Ten minutes prior to touchdown, helicopter crews spotted the undamaged Soyuz 11 gently swaying back and forth beneath a parachute that appeared to be in perfect condition. When the helicopter commander radioed that the capsule had landed safely, mission control was ecstatic.
After three weeks in space, the recovery team was just minutes away from opening the hatch and offering the cosmonauts cognac and other home comforts. Two minutes after touchdown, the search and rescue team of two men reached the Soyuz 11 and knocked on the ship’s hull to signal their presence. However, there was no reply from within… When they opened the hatch, one of the rescuers’ faces creased with concern and uncertainty. Inside the capsule, the recovery team observed three motionless cosmonauts slouched over. Their faces were covered in dark spots that appeared to be bruises, and there was blood coming from their noses and ears. Dobrovolski, one of the spacemen, was still warm, but efforts to revive him were unsuccessful. The initial communication between the recovery crew and mission control consisted of three digits: 1-1-1. This was a code that represented the cosmonauts’ health. 5 indicated excellent condition, 4 indicated good condition, 3 indicated injuries, 2 indicated serious injuries, and 1 indicated fatal injuries. What happened then? Investigators determined, based on the positions of the three cosmonauts’ bodies at the time of their discovery, that Dobrovolski and Volkov had unbuckled themselves from their seats in an attempt to locate the air leak. Heart rate monitors revealed that their heart rates increased as they searched. However, time was not on their side, as Patsayev’s pulse dropped within 50 seconds as his body ran out of oxygen, and all three cosmonauts perished within 110 seconds. Investigators determined that a malfunctioning valve caused the space accident. Their funeral was of epic proportions, and the entire nation mourned their passing. As engineers redesigned the Soyuz spacecraft, the Soviet Union halted all human spaceflights. Currently, all cosmonauts must wear spacesuits during launches and landings.
However, Russia is not the only nation with a space disaster that claimed the lives of courageous astronauts. The United States led the world in space travel due to the inventive engineering of the Space Shuttle, which was reusable. However, even the most advanced spacecraft can encounter difficulties. Since the first space shuttle launch on April 12, 1981, the United States appeared bored with spaceflight by January 1986, and Americans were already accustomed to seeing the space shuttle launch. Since its first flight, the program has encountered no problems. But everything would change rapidly. On the morning of January 28, 1986, the STS-51L crew boarded the Challenger orbiter. Tuesday morning was chilly and sunny. Payload specialist Christa McAuliffe, a civilian, schoolteacher, and mother of three, was among the seven astronauts on this mission. As a result, people in the United States were a bit more enthusiastic about the launch. She was a part of the “Teacher in Space” project and evidence that space was now accessible to all Americans, not just elite fighter pilots. Dick Scobee commanded the Challenger shuttle, with Michael Smith as its pilot and mission specialists Ellison Onizuka, Judith Resnik, and Ronald McNair. Gregory Jarvis was the other payload specialist with Christa McAuliffe. At 11:38 a.m., the space shuttle Challenger launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying Christa McAullife, who was on her way to becoming the first ordinary American to travel into space.
With hundreds of people on the ground, including Christa’s family and a group of students, and millions of viewers watching the launch on television, the space shuttle exploded into a fireball and disintegrated after just 73 seconds. What happened then? We mentioned that the morning was chilly. In fact, the tower was covered in ice two hours before launch. Overnight, the ice team recorded temperatures of -4 degrees Celsius [25 degrees Fahrenheit] on the left solid rocket booster and -13 degrees Celsius [8 degrees Fahrenheit] on the right SRB. The temperatures of the solid rocket boosters were not a part of the Launch Commitment Criteria, so these measurements were recorded for engineering purposes only and not reported. Before proceeding, it is important to note that the solid rocket boosters of the shuttle are comprised of four segments connected by three O-ring joints. The purpose of these O-rings is to maintain the internal pressure of the SRB, and their failure would result in a catastrophic failure known as “burn through.” This occurred with the proper solid rocket booster. A puff of black smoke emanated from the right SRB during launch, indicating that the O-ring had already failed. Once the shuttle was in the air, the failed O-ring began to emit flames, and the sideways flame sliced through the SRB like a torch. The 1.2 billion dollar spacecraft, its satellite cargo, and seven astronauts were instantly lost. The cold played a significant role in the accident. The launch was conducted in -3 degrees Celsius (26 degrees Fahrenheit) weather, and engineers were aware of the dangers posed to the O-rings by such low temperatures. Nevertheless, despite the engineers’ numerous warnings, the shuttle was cleared for launch. After this terrible tragedy, NASA suspended the space shuttle program for two years while its engineers redesigned many of the shuttle components. However, this would not be the final space shuttle accident. In April 1981, the Space Shuttle Columbia was the first shuttle to be launched into space.
After its first flight, the shuttle launched twenty-seven more times; on January 16, 2003, it was on its 28th flight. The mission STS-107 crew consisted of mission commander Rick D. Husband, pilot William C. McCool, payload commander Michael P. Anderson, Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon serving as payload specialist, flight engineer Kalpana Chawla, who had previously flown on mission STS-87, and U.S. Navy captains David M. Brown and Laurel Blair Salton Clark flying as mission specialists. The launch appeared to be successful and problem-free. On a 16-day mission, the astronauts conducted approximately 80 science and research experiments while working 24 hours a day in two alternating shifts. It was time for the crew to return home, and on February 1, 2003, the space shuttle Columbia was scheduled to reenter the atmosphere and land. Mission Control’s Entry Flight Control Team began its shift at 2:30 am Eastern Standard Time. The crew of the orbiter stowed loose items and prepared for re-entry. The Husband and McCool started completing the entry checklist. And at 1:10 p.m., permission was granted for the crew of Columbia to conduct their deorbit burn, which lasted 2 minutes and 38 seconds. Columbia reentered the atmosphere at an altitude of 120 kilometers [400,000 feet] at 1:44 p.m. After four and a half minutes, a sensor detected an abnormally high amount of stress on the left wing. However, the sensor data was transmitted to an internal recorder, and neither the crew nor the ground controllers could view it. Because of the increased drag, the orbiter started to yaw to the left.
However, the orbiter’s flight control system rectified the issue, and the crew was unaware of the drag or what was occurring. This was followed by sensors indicating problems with the hydraulic systems of the left wing and a loss of tire pressure on the left landing gear. When flight controllers received the last transmission from Columbia, the shuttle was flying 60 kilometers (38 miles) above the planet at a speed of 20,120 kilometers per hour (12,500 mph). Numerous witnesses captured on film their horror as the orbiter disintegrated and broke apart. What happened to the crew of the Columbia? After Columbia had entered orbit, the NASA Intercenter Photo Working Group conducted a routine review of the launch video footage. On the second day, it was discovered that a piece of foam had detached from the large external tank and struck the shuttle’s left wing as it was climbing into orbit. The Debris Management Team was unable to assess the damage to the left wing, and the US Department of Defense received multiple requests for images. The US Strategic Command received a request and began identifying assets that could capture images of the orbiter. Linda Ham, chair of the NASA Mission Management Team, denied the image request after discovering where it originated. She inquired about the imaging requirement with a flight director but not with the debris assessment team. Moving the orbiter into a position to be imaged would have interfered with ongoing science operations, and Ham dismissed the Department of Defense’s imaging capabilities as inadequate for assessing damage to Columbia’s left wing. Now the situation becomes more intriguing.
Mission management told the Columbia crew that the risk of the debris strike was low, and flight director Steve Stich told McCool and Husband that they didn’t need to worry because foam strikes had happened on other flights. They also got a 15-second video of the impact and were told that there was no danger. Clearly, they were in error. Members of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board did a test with a piece of a space shuttle wing and a piece of foam fired at high speed at the same spot where a piece of foam hit the wing of Columbia. This is what transpired. Then, after firing a piece of foam insulation at the shuttle wing, the investigators blew a 60-centimeter [2-foot] gaping hole in it, much to the amazement of onlookers. This was the smoking gun that proved the debris strike caused the destruction of Columbia and the loss of her crew. It was the final space shuttle launch, after which the space shuttle program was retired permanently. Since then, Russia’s Soyuz program and now SpaceX’s rockets have been used to launch astronauts into space. We have no more time at the moment.
