Ed Lu & his photo of Soyuz TMA-1 from the ISS, just before it was scorched by a ballistic reentry

iPhone 6

ƒ/2.2

4.15 mm

1/30

100

A wonderful gift today at lunch with the Sentinel Mission. At a recent B612 event at DFJ, astronaut Ed Lu saw the two scorched TMA-1 panels (below), and remembered sending them off from the ISS:

“I looked through my photos and I found this picture I took of Soyuz TMA-1 as it pulled away after undocking. If you look at the top you can see my hand and the camera lens reflected in the porthole window. We normally went to an inertial attitude hold before undocking, so unfortunately the Sun is almost in the window making the photo less than ideal, but that’s how it goes sometimes. About 2 hours after this photo was taken, Soyuz TMA-1 (with Expedition 6 onboard) had the sensor failure that forced a downmode to ballistic entry. The thruster panel you have was used to spin up the Soyuz to gyro-stabilize the vehicle (rifle bullet style) so it could make an unguided reentry.”

3 responses to “Ed Lu & his photo of Soyuz TMA-1 from the ISS, just before it was scorched by a ballistic reentry”

jurvetson

Jan 16, 2015 at 5:41 am

Here is the external heat shield for the attitude control thrusters from the landing capsule of the inaugural flight of the Soyuz TMA spacecraft: The thrusters of this panel were used to spin up the capsule for a ballistic reentry. The craft landed 300 miles short of the planned area, and the crew was subjected to severe gravitational loads.

This is what the scorched panel looks like from the outsideThe inner shell is fiberglass over a composite of ebonite, carbon fiber and glass:Communication with the Soyuz was lost because one antenna was ripped off during descent, and two more did not deploy. The crew regained communications through an emergency transmitter after landing.

And here is the recovery beacon antenna cover from the same mission: Both of these artifacts were associated with anomalous events during the mission.

Ed Lu’s photo, close up:

Reply
In Memoriam: jerryfi_99

Jan 16, 2015 at 6:48 am

That is cool, to have the whole story tied together. Congrats!

Reply
sbove

Jan 17, 2015 at 11:07 pm

Dear crew: "We are about to make you spin like a rifle bullet." Hehheh.

Reply