[FPSPACE] Excellent set of Aleksandr Pantyukhin's photos

[Charles Vick]

They appear to use a composite board shaped to the spacecraft that is
composed of an asbestos fiber graphite resign material that was developed by
Grafit Research Institute the same stuff used on the Iranian Icononic
warhead design. NIIGRAFIT, Grafit Research Institute - The State Scientific
Research Institute of Graphite, did provide the ablative asbestos graphite
composite board coatings materials and forming manufacturing technology for
the new Icononic re-entry vehicle seen deployed and flight test on the
Iranian Shahab-3B MRBM. It is the same re-entry material used on return
capsules of the Russian Kosmos RECSATS and Bio-Satellites etc. Many examples
of this have been displayed in the US in the past and Soyuz is still on
display at the Smithsonian etc.

 

-----Original Message-----
From: fpspace-bounces at friends-partners.org
[mailto:fpspace-bounces at friends-partners.org] On Behalf Of Javier Casado
Sent: Friday, June 06, 2008 3:39 AM
To: fpspace at friends-partners.org
Subject: Re: [FPSPACE] Excellent set of Aleksandr Pantyukhin's photos

 

The damage to the pod seems to have been caused at landing, probably by
impact with the soil. However, it shows clear signs of charring that
probably has fragilized the material (by the way, anybody knows what
material is? it seems to be composite, probably carbon fiber with phenolic
resin, I guess, but I don't know; in this case, a severe charring almost
converts the resin to carbon, turning it more or less similar to the leading
edge of the Shuttle wings. And we all know how fragile it is...). Anyway,
this structure seems to be just an aerodynamic fairing for the ACS rockets,
a non-structural part of small thickness, so it is not strange that it
becomes damaged if subjected to impacts.

 

Another doubt: in photo
http://www.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/content/photogallery/gallery_152/pages/IM
G_8954.htm we can see also charring on the hatch and surrounding structure.
Is this usual in other missions, or not?

 

Regards,

 

Javier Casado

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