** The Official Space Flight Thread - The Space Station and Beyond **

PermaBanned said:
No, but it's a pretty unlikely coincidence - nothing for 40 years and then three failures all at once? Besides, wasn't the last one put down to a 'construction line defect'? Pretty vague, could be effected by a lot of things.
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Fuel line blocked! How does something block the line whilest being fitted as im sure anyone non anal would look down or azlike to make sure it's clear. Uber suspect to me!
 
A fuel line blockage could be caused after fitting by an internal fuel tank lining starting to deteriorate. If there are mesh filters at any stage of the fuel line then even a sliver of paint can block the flow sufficiently to cause problems.
 
Here we go both third stage, but two different systems
August's botched launch involved a Soyuz-U. An inquiry into that incident eventually traced the problem to a blocked fuel line, again in the third stage of the vehicle. But the U and 2.1b Soyuz variants use different engines in this segment of the rocket, so no immediate parallels between the two incidents can be drawn.

Also wiki says 21 failed missions, which I think is a large % failure than the shuttle.
 
Glaucus said:
Here we go both third stage, but two different systems
August's botched launch involved a Soyuz-U. An inquiry into that incident eventually traced the problem to a blocked fuel line, again in the third stage of the vehicle. But the U and 2.1b Soyuz variants use different engines in this segment of the rocket, so no immediate parallels between the two incidents can be drawn.

Also wiki says 21 failed missions, which I think is a large % failure than the shuttle.
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Different systems maybe, but they're both very similar, will share some common parts and are both made in the same place by the same people.

As for 'Soyuz verses Shuttle' - it's not quite that clear cut, as the Shuttle was a dedicated reusable manned delivery vehicle whereas Soyuz is a modular system capable of launching manned and unmanned cargo missions.

Where are you getting that figure from anyway? I can't seem to find it anywhere... nor the total number of Soyuz missions, be it total, manned or unmanned that are anywhere near up to date.
 
Spook187 said:
The shuttle was classed as high risk by nasa though.
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It's all high risk.

Just been reading about the Russian copy. Fully automated so no need for humans.
And no external fuel tank so no insulating foam. Shame they binned it after the one and only test flight.
Also had ejected seats for all crew and crew could escape at all stages of launch.
 
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No, not safer. We were talking about ratio of successes to failures - reliability. I think that's a different think entirely. Soyuz is definitely safer.

Something goes wrong on the pad; in Soyuz you use the emergency escape tower to get the hell out of there, in Shuttle you're screwed.

Something goes wrong with the lower stages; in Soyuz they're liquid fueled and they shut down, you separate, deploy parachutes, land and try again; in Shuttle they're solid fueled so they keep going no matter what, all that energy has to go somewhere and if it doesn't end up pointing you straight at the ground it will probably blow you up, unless by some miracle you've all managed to unbuckle, jump out the hatch and start praying.

Something goes wrong in the upper stages; in Soyuz they shut down, you separate and go for a ballistic re-entry, uncomfortable but easily survivable, in Shuttle you have to wait until the external tank has less than 5% fuel before you jettison or else it could slosh back and hit you, ruining your chances of a safe re-entry. If engines shut down before then, you're screwed.
 
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