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Explosive bolt removed from ISS-docked Soyuz |
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Written by Derek Kessler on
Sunday, 20 July 2008
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 (From July 10, 2008) Prompted by the botched reentry of the previous two Soyuz craft leaving the International Space Station, two Russian cosmonauts ventured into space to remove a faulty explosive bolt blamed for the mishaps. Oleg Kononenko and Sergei Volkov cut into the insulation of the Soyuz spacecraft docked with the ISS and removed the bolt. While there was no chance of their actions triggering the explosives, if activated, the M-80 firecracker force could have blown of their hands. The bolt was immediately secured inside a blast-proof canister.
NASA and Russian engineers were both satisfied that the cosmonauts would not be in danger. Even so, Russian mission controller repeatedly urged Kononenko and Volkov to be careful. With the bolt secured, it will be returned to Earth for study.
The past two Soyuz reentries have suffered from what is called a ballistic reentry. In such a descent, the craft enters the atmosphere at too steep of an angle, resulting in a rough, high g force, and far off-target landing. The faulty bolt failed to fire on time, resulting in a portion of the craft supposed to be ejected remaining attached for too long. This caused the craft to weigh more upon descent and reenter the atmosphere too steeply. The Soyuz capsule currently docked was the one that carried Kononenko and Volkov to the ISS, and is also the one destined to carry them back to Earth in October. The stainless steel blast container will easily contain any blast from the bolt, but it would require an impact of at least 100 times the force of gravity to detonate.
Kononenko cut into the insulation on the outside of the Soyuz capsule with a serrated knife. Knives are rarely used in space for fear of puncturing the astronauts’ pressurized suits. After getting through the insulation, they installed static electricity dissipaters and removed the small bolt with a socket wrench. Having removed the bolt, the cosmonauts placed a patch over the hole in the insulation.
After the space shuttle is retired in 2010, the Russia’s Soyuz capsule will be the only way to get humans to and from the ISS. The shuttle’s replacement system, the Orion CEV, will not be online until 2015. Thus, NASA has a keen interest in the reliability of the Soyuz system, which has been used by Russia since 1966 with few changes.
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