[FPSPACE] Excellent set of Aleksandr Pantyukhin's photos from the TMA-11 landing site

[Geert Sassen]

The pod indeed contains the 2 pitch thrusters, ref 'Soyuz' by 
Hall/Shayler (ISBN 1-85233-657-9) page 43 & 67. This pod has been there 
since the first soyuz missions and is also visible on pictures of the 
Zond cabins. See also http://www.astronautix.com/graphics/s/soydmrcs.jpg 
for a scheme of the Soyuz DM attitude control system.

I searched through a lot of Soyuz and Zond landing pictures but could 
not find any damage resembling what is shown in the TMA 11 pictures 
below, also the pattern of the charring on the cabin looks different 
from other craft. However, as yet I did not find any clear pictures of 
the condition of the TMA 10 and especially the Soyuz 5 DM, it would be 
interesting to see in what condition they were after landing.

The burning on the ground also still intrigues me, only one of the fires 
seems to have started a few meters downwind from the hatch of the DM 
(apparently consuming the parachute), however there is at least one 
other fire which is a bit more difficult to explain unless it was caused 
by the discarded heatshield which I would expect to fall much further 
away and more upwind from the landingpoint (as it is discarded at approx 
4000 meter height). As I mentioned earlier, if the fire was caused by 
the softlanding rockets, you would expect it to start upwind from the 
DM, however it clearly starts downwind.

Still unexplained to me also is why the recovery forces were originally 
send east (expecting an 'overshoot') while in fact a ballistic re-entry 
always results in a landing west of the intended position. It sounds 
like only one helicopter was patrolling close enough to the actual 
landingspot to receive the beacon-transmission. If the previous mission 
resulted in a ballistic landing, one would expect a quick look to the 
west as soon as the DM was not spotted in its intended position, so why 
were they send to the east?

Regards,

Geert.
 
Jim Oberg wrote:
>  
> Excellent set of Aleksandr Pantyukhin's photos from the TMA-11 landing 
> site:
> http://www.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/content/photogallery/gallery_152/index.shtml
>  
>  
>
> Just what is this pod on the Soyuz, and is the damage unusual?
>
>  
>
> http://www.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/content/photogallery/gallery_152/images/IMG_8950.jpg
>
> http://www.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/content/photogallery/gallery_152/images/IMG_8956.jpg
>
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-- 
Geert Sassen

Mobile Netherlands: +31646402502
Mobile Thailand: +66833273833

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