Zip... ...zoom!

A clever fellow in Germany, Till Kredner, who co-authors the great website All the Sky, has a a great clip of the Jules Verne transport vehicle and the space station passing over Hohenzollern Castle.

It's greatly sped up, and the smaller, dimmer Jules Verne ATV is in front of the International Space Station (ISS). You can just catch an airplane as it passes 'near' the departing and much brighter ISS.

The ATV is now docked to the ISS, and will remain there for many weeks. It's used to take supplies up, boost the orbit of the ISS, and take garbage away.

Sputnik 1 +50

The Space Age began fifty years ago today, but those involved at the time had little idea of how significant the event was to be.

Both the Russian and American teams involved in rocketry at the time were consumed by one overarching goal: to develop an ICBM capable of delivering an atomic bomb to enemy territory. The idea of orbiting a satellite was completely secondary, and the public reaction to the launch of Sputnik 1 by the Russians took both teams by surprise (listen to Sputnik 1).

In fact, the idea of orbiting something was only barely tolerated by the military commands in both countries. The declaration of the International Geophysical Year (IGY) for 1957-1958 was the event that stimulated sufficient political interest in the gains of being first, and was what permitted the orbital programs to go ahead.

(Click on any of the graphics to go to a page with a larger version.)

After the fall of Nazi Germany, both the USA and the USSR took as much of the V-2 rocket program home with them as they could. The USA got the cream of the crop from the test range at Peenemuende: Wernher von Braun and most of his designers, while the Soviets took much of the hardware and plans from the East at Mittelwerke, as well as von Braun's assistant, Helmut Groettrup. The photo shows the Soviet-built rocket R-2A, clearly showing its V-2 heritage, and probably composed of many parts brought from Germany. This was the first methyl alcohol fueled rocket, changed from the V-2 and R-1 ethyl alcohol motor (one reason for this shift was said to be to stop the guards from stealing the ethyl fuel to drink). The R-2A variant was used for science, rather than the military version which carried a radiological liquid dispersal weapon known as Geran. The R-2 was also the first rocket technology exported to China by the Soviets, and formed the basis of the Chinese Long March program, combined with the information from the deported US researcher and JPL co-founder Tsien Hsue-shen.

This is the "Chief Designer," Sergei Korolev, lionized posthumously by the Soviets as the father of the early successes in the Soviet space program, at the Kapustin Yar launch site in 1953. Having suffered for many years in a Siberian Gulag during Stalin's Great Terror, he was rescuscitated in the late 1940's and held great sway in the Soviet space effort until changes in the Politburo and disputes with the military led to the ascendancy of his arch-rivals, Valentin Glushko and Vladimir Chelomei. Today's Russian rocket fleet owe a great debt to the efforts of these engineers: the Soyuz to Korolev via the R-series, the Proton to Chelomei via the UR-series, and the efforts of Glushko, who provided engine designs for both families of rockets. Only with the lifting of secrecy in Russia have the efforts of the many many people involved in the program come to light, allowing many others to claim credit for their work. Korolev died early, and was never publicly recognized for his efforts.

Close-up of the 80cm aluminum alloy spherical portion of Sputnik 1. The four antennae were actually two sets of two, differing in length by a few centimeters, probably to accommodate the more efficient radiation of the two frequencies used by the on-board radio transmitter. Sputnik 1 was actually a rush job, prepared within one month because the original payloads for the R-7 were way behind schedule. The Sputnik was scoffed at by many as "Korolev's toy." The original scientific IGY payload was eventually launched as Sputnik 3.

This shot shows the scale of Sputnik as it was covered with the fairing cone of the R-7 rocket.

Frame grab from a Soviet animation of the separation of the fairing and the launch of Sputnik 1 from the booster. The small fairing can be seen on the second rocket from the left in the diagram of the multiple boosters that came from the R-7 line:

This graphic shows the evolution of the boosters from Korolev's design bureau. The R-7 was the first ICBM, launched on August 21 1957, virtually unnoticed by the world. It was at this point that the rocket lifting power (or throw weight) was sufficiently high, and the weight of the latest nuclear weapons had been decreased enough for the two to form an effective weapon and delivery system. The Vostok and Voskhod boosters carried the first man in orbit, as well as the first multiple-man crew capsules. The modern Soyuz system has clear design lines reaching back to the earliest of the R-series, and this heritage is part of the reason for the system's extremely high success rate (760 launches to date with 740 successes, per Space Launch Report), as well as its extremely low cost.

A mosaic in the main hall at the Korolev Control Centre in Moscow, showing the 'Holy Trinity' of Soviet space efforts: On the left, Konstantin Tsiolkovskiy, inventor of modern rocket theory; on the right, Chief Designer Sergei Korolev; and in the centre, Yuri Gagarin, first man in space. Spectator is Mohammed Masri, from Saudi Arabia.

As Boris Chertok, one of Korolev's deputy designers, noted in a BBC interview, if it had not been for the cold war, the space race would never had occurred, and the space age would have started much later.

One other interesting feature of the Soviet first was that since the US did not object to the passage of a foreign capsule crossing over its territory, this established the principle of international uses of outer space. However a skeptic might observe that the US Corona and Midas spy satellite programs were well into their design stages, and overflight of enemy territory was a necessary condition for this first remote sensing spy program to work. In fact, this space overflight principle probably kept the Cold War from becoming 'hot' at many different points in the subsequent decades because of the ability of both powers to monitor and verify each other's treaty commitments.

Sadovskiy, Kolyako & Tsybin:

Fifteen years ago today, the Soviet space shuttle "Buran" was launched from Baikonur on an Energiya booster. Derided at the time for being a copy of the U.S. Space Shuttle, the actual technical accomplishments of this flight have been glossed over. The similarities in aerodynamic design disappear once you look at the details.

The decision to avoid solid rocket boosters and cryogenic engine technology used on the U.S. Shuttle led to the development of the Energiya booster, capable of putting 88,000kg into low Earth orbit, and 22,000kg to geosynchronous orbit (in comparison, Ariane-V can lift 18,000kg to LEO and 6,800kg to geosynchronous; the Shuttle can lift 24,400kg to LEO, 5,900kg to geosynchronous transfer orbit; and the Saturn-V got 118,000kg to LEO, 47,000kg to translunar trajectory).

This configuration allowed Buran to actually have a larger payload capacity than the Shuttle (30,000kg vs. 25,000kg), despite its smaller physical orbiter size (105,000kg vs. 123,000kg).

The launch was carried out despite a 4°C temperature, with snow flurries and 72km/hr winds (appropriately, since 'Buran' means blizzard in Russian). Control was maintained through radio link with several Gorizont, Luch and Molniya comsats and tracking ships (interestingly, one of the ships off Chile was named the "Marshall Nedelin"...). Two orbits later, the spacecraft landed on complete auto pilot, less than 2m off the runway center-line at Baikonur, even after battling a 65km/hr crosswind at 30 degrees off-runway. Five tiles were lost on re-entry (I actually have one of the replacement tiles sitting on my desk!). Exhaustive pre-flight testing with many scale versions and six full size mockups contributed to this first orbital test's success.

Buran on final approach, and on roll-out:

All above photos (c) NPO Molniya

Here is a link to a short MPEG (5.1Mb) video of the Buran on final approach shot by Igor Volk, head of the Buran Cosmonaut team, from the MiG-25 chase plane seen above.

Technical accomplishments aside, the logistical, economic and political requirements necessary to carry out this mission doomed it to failure within the Soviet system. In fact, it is probable that the vast investment in the Energiya and Buran programs themselves contributed to the implosion of the Soviet system ($20 billion rubles in Buran alone). The Energiya only ever flew twice. One other Energiya launch had been carried out previous to Buran, but the payload, the military "battle station" Polyus malfunctioned, and never reached orbit.

Buran was to have flown in December of 1994 to Mir and delivered another module, but the entire Energiya/Buranprogram was cancelled by Boris Yeltsin on June 30, 1993. It didn't help that one of the 1991 coup plotters was the Buran project manager.

In the end, all the Energiyas that had been produced were cannibalized, with their engines used on Zenit and U.S. Atlas vehicles. The Buran flyers were mothballed, and suffered various fates - museums, scrap heaps, and one as part of the amusement section of Gorky park in Moscow. The original idea was to set it up as a space-food restaurant, but it now serves as a slightly dilapidated theatre/vehicle for simulated space rides, as seen below.

Above photos (c) 2000 Jane Skorina

In all, a very Russian ending to the story.

Kudryavka Laika:

A quick bark for Laika or "little barker" in Russian, who was launched into space on Sputnik 2 on this day in 1957. The technical feat was that this second sputnik was six times heavier than Sputnik 1, and was less than one month later -- a fact not lost on the U.S. rocket effort.

Here she is:

What is little known is that this launch was done by Korolev as a response to a special request by Khruschev to "do something special for the upcoming anniversary of the Revolution." ...and that there was no way down for the scrappy little Moscow street dog, who lived up to her name, forlornly barking until her oxygen ran out two days later. Sniff.

(A later note: documents released only lately have revealed that Laika died within hours of launch because the cooling system failed. I also found out that she was sealed in the capsule four days before launch! Poor girl.)

Tyuratam, Alcântara:

Today was to have been the launch date for Brazil's VLS-3 (Veiculo Lançador de Satelites), or satellite launch vehicle, a new entry into the commercial satellite launch market.

On Saturday, during pre-launch testing, one of the motors apparently ignited prematurely on the pad, while technicians were still surrounding the vehicle. In the ensuing explosion and fire, twenty-one people were killed.

We easily forget that rockets are simply slightly well controlled bombs. Brazil's two previous attempts at the VLS have also failed, fortunately with no fatalities, as they were destroyed by the range safety officer after launch.

This accident is reminescent of the October 26, 1960 accident at Tyuratam, known as the Nedelin Incident, after Mitrofan Nedelin, the Commander of the Soviet Strategic Missile Forces. Nedelin was under great pressure from Kruschev to deliver a successful launch, and his presence interfered greatly with normal operations where a Soviet R-16 was being hurriedly prepared for launch. Personnel was not evacuated from the area after fueling, as was required by safety regulations, and a series of compounding errors led to a horrendous event. The fully-fueled rocket exploded with about 250 people still near the launch pad, including Nedelin himself. A film of the event shows people in burning clothing trying to flee over a melting tar road. Truly horrific. Estimates of the death toll vary, ranging from 92 to 165. What is certain is that some of the very best technicians in the Soviet program were killed that day.

In the Brazilian case, at least the failure was immediately announced. It took 40 years for the Nedelin story to come out. Also, at least the hospitals in the area of the Alcântara launch facility in Brazil knew what they were dealing with for the incoming injured -- in the Soviet case, the military would not identify what chemicals the victims were covered with, which may have caused some deaths among hospital staff, due to the propellants' toxicity.

In an interesting footnote, it turns out that Leonid Brezhnev was the chairman of the investigating committee for this incident. There was no punishment recommended by the committee report - it simply noted that the guilty had been punished already.

Chicken Little:

A Soyuz rocket launched from the Baykonur/Tyuratam complex carried Cosmos 2399 into orbit today. Cosmos 2399 is a spy satellite mission, carrying a Yantar-4KS1M electronic photoreconnaissance package.

How do I know this? Because the Russians are telling all. Amazing. Not that you get the full scoop on what exactly they will be pointing that little gadget at, but the fact that they are making information so openly available at all is simply astounding.

The other fact to note is that Cosmos 2265 (ok, its rocket booster, to be exact) is expected to re-enter the atmosphere today, hopefully over an uninhabited part of the Pacific. 2399's is expected to rain down on the 16th.

What goes up must come down, so look out for little bits of Soyuz... one comes down just about every week or so.

Lyakhov & Aleksandrov:

Twenty years ago*, aboard the venerable Salyut 7 Soviet space station, cosmonauts Vladimir Lyakhov and Aleksandr Aleksandrov heard a sound no space-farer wants to hear: CRACK!

The cosmonauts started emergency evacuation procedures, fearing that the hull had been pierced and they were losing air. After a few minutes it became clear that the air pressure was not dropping, and they began to explore the station to find the cause, eventually finding a 3.8 cm impact crater in an observation port. Luckily, the impact had not pierced all the layers in the window.

This particular incident was attributed by the Soviets to the Delta Aquarid shower, but there is also the possibility that it was caused by man-made space debris -- something Lyakhov himself later contributed to by casting off junk during his November 1 1983 spacewalk. All subsequent Russian space station modules have had armored covers over their view ports that are supposed to be closed when not in use.

Aleksandrov later went on to work for the Energiya Design Bureau on rescue systems, and in 1989 he compiled some interesting numbers on spaceflight 'anomalies' during the Vostok, Mercury, Voskhod, Gemini, Soyuz, Apollo and Soyuz series:

• over 30% were due to human failures
  
• 21% were control system failures
  
• 85% had no impact on the mission
  
• 6% required the use of backup systems
  
• 2.5% were self-correcting
  
• 0.5% had both the primary and secondary backup systems fail
  

Pity there is no comparison with Shuttle.

There is an amazing amount of debris in space around the Earth. J-Track 3D is the best Java applet illustration I have seen of the sheer number of satellites that orbit the Earth (and for teaching orbital mechanics, for that matter). If you consider the number of tiny particles that each rocket booster generated in placing these items in orbit, you can get a general idea of how much of a man-made hazard we have put into orbit. Tiny, brilliant pebbles indeed.

*There is some disagreement in the literature over whether this happened on July 25 or July 27.