Russia Left Without Access to ISS Following Structure Collapse During Thursday's Launch (nasaspaceflight.com)
- Reference: 0180247527
- News link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/12/01/0327208/russia-left-without-access-to-iss-following-structure-collapse-during-thursdays-launch
- Source link: https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2025/11/site-31-accident/
> There are other Soyuz 2 rocket launch pads, but they are either located at an unsuitable latitude, like Plesetsk, or not certified for crewed flights, like Vostochny, or decommissioned and transferred to a museum, like Gagarin's Start at Baikonur. As a result, Russia is temporarily unable to launch Soyuz crewed spacecraft and Progress cargo ships to the ISS, whose nearest launch (Progress MS-33) was scheduled for December 21....
>
> When the rocket launched, a pressure difference was created between the space under the rocket, where gases from running engines are discharged, and the nook where the [144-ton] maintenance cabin was located. The resulting pressure difference pulled the service cabin out of the nook and threw it into the flame trench, where it fell upside down from a height of 20 m. Photos of the accident showed significant damage to the maintenance cabin, which, according to experts, is too extensive to allow for repairs. The only way to resume launches from Site 31/6 is to install a spare maintenance cabin or construct a new one.
>
> Despite the fact that the fallen structure was manufactured in the 1960s, two similar service cabins were manufactured recently at the Tyazhmash heavy-engineering plant in Syzran for other Soyuz launch complexes at the Guiana Space Center and Vostochny Cosmodrome. The production of each cabin took around two years to complete, however, it was not for an emergency situation.
"Various experts gave different possible estimates of the recovery time of the Site 31 launch complex: from several months to three years."
[1] https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2025/11/site-31-accident/
Much as I enjoy mocking Russia... (Score:5, Insightful)
This sort of thing just happens sometimes.
But I will be curious to see how this plays out, given the Russians have already gone back and forth regarding whether they're going to stick with the ISS to the end of its operational life. They might decide the decision's been made for them.
Re: (Score:1)
Russia is run by an evil man who is indeed turning it into a shithole.
But it is not a *communist* shithole.
The fact that Russia appears to be controlling the US president is maybe something to be more concerned about.
Re: (Score:1)
> Russia is run by an evil man who is indeed turning it into a shithole. But it is not a *communist* shithole. The fact that Russia appears to be controlling the US president is maybe something to be more concerned about.
It wasn’t a “maybe” concern when a dishonorably discharged cokehead son started working for a Ukrainian energy corporation. It was blatantly corruptly fucked. And a liberal media turned a blind eye, because The Big Guy.
Spare us the Russia Russia Marsha maybes. We’ve barely started unmasking President Autopens blatant corruption.
Re: (Score:2)
You wanna tell us about Hillary and her emails again too?
Re: (Score:1)
Message to you and Trump:
NOBODY CARES about Biden any more. He's gone.
We do care about Europe being invaded, NATO doing nothing, and Russia winning the war it started, so likely to start many more.
Re: (Score:2)
Surely the obvious thing to do, if it's important to keep launching to the ISS, is to move one of the cabins from another site? The article mentions two being recently built. That would take the other site out of action, but it's a question of which site is more important.
Why? (Score:3)
Why can't we fly the Russians to the space station like they did for us between the shuttle retiring and Dragon being crew certified?
Re: (Score:3)
We can, and likely will. The headline is poorly worded and misleading - de rigueur for Slashdot unfortunately.
Re: (Score:2)
They could, but probably the only real reason why they maintained access to the ISS is because they get paid for it, and because they wanted to keep their independent capability alive. Aside from those reasons, they probably aren't all that interested in going there.
unattainable tech (Score:1)
The destroyed 8U216 service cabin used for Soyuz launches was manufactured at the Novokramatorsk Machine Building Plant in Kramatorsk, Donetsk region.
Of course this plant was bombed by ruzzia multiple times since the February 2022.https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YQDNpqEf5us
ruzzia has a few options there.
1. leave everything as is and stop making launches, fire the unnecessary staff, forget about space.
2. get one of the platforms that were built and installed elsewhere (there are 3 of these used by their milita
Re: (Score:2)
Putin has gone way beyond any semblence of being an intelligent leader. He's become nothing more than a white equivalent of a psychopathic and corrupt african style banana republic leader who only cares about money and staying in power. He won't give a damn about russias space ability now.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes that is a perfectly sane assumption. Assume that just because only one factor built something 50 years ago that that is still the case now. Yep. Makes perfect sense. Which company's strategy team do you work for? Asking for someone who likes shorting stock...
Natasha says... (Score:2)
Must keel Moose and Squirrel!"
The setup looks rickety to me. (Score:2)
Given, the Soviet-Russian style of space technology has always been more pragmatic. But this looks rickety and somewhat ghetto-style, like deterioration by neglegt. Or they used chinesium for the structure and it failed before EOL.
However, it could also very well be that they've been using those exact same folding gantries for decades beyond EOL now and the finally simply failed due to wear and tear, no matter how rugged they initially were built.
It's probably a combination of both.
It would be absolutely hi
Perhaps they should try trampolines? (Score:2, Troll)
It was their idea, after all.
Re:Perhaps they should try trampolines? (Score:4, Funny)
I guess if you're going to ask a question that dumb, it's best to do it as an AC.
Because the airspeed velocity of an unladen European swallow is approximately 20.1 mph (32.4 kph), or about 9 meters per second, and that isn't enough to get to the ISS.