Winston
Lorenzo von Matterhorn
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Old event, but a nice onboard video of it.
How a Russian Rocket Launch Failed Spectacularly In Just 118 Seconds
American astronaut Nick Hague and his cosmonaut copilot had to abort at 4,000 MPH
https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a33864689/soyuz-ms-10-russia-rocket-failure
MS-10 is approaching top speed when it reaches a critical moment in its flight procedure: After 115 seconds of ascension, the rocket ejects most of its primary safety mechanism—the Jettisonable Emergency Escape Head Section (or the Sistema Avariynogo Spaseniya, SAS, in Russian)—from atop the Soyuz capsule. In the event of an explosion on the launchpad or an emergency in the first 90 seconds of flight, the main SAS would use beefy solid-rocket motors to pull the capsule holding the astronauts up and away from the core stage. But after 90 seconds of flight, the rocket is moving too fast for the capsule to be freed with a speed boost. The main SAS is dead weight, so it drops away, leaving a last-resort backup system in place below the capsule.
The next step in flight is the first stage separation. Here, the four 65-foot strap-ons separate from the rocket via propulsive gas jets, but while three of the boosters release from the core stage, the fourth clings to the rocket. On the joint connecting each booster to the core, a nozzle lid is supposed to open and release the gas, but on this last booster, the lid stays shut. A tiny separator sensor pin on the joint is bent by a little more than 6 degrees, enough to interfere with the sequence that tells the booster to release. The propulsive gas fires anyway, and the misdirection sends the booster careening into the core stage instead, tearing the core open.
How a Russian Rocket Launch Failed Spectacularly In Just 118 Seconds
American astronaut Nick Hague and his cosmonaut copilot had to abort at 4,000 MPH
https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a33864689/soyuz-ms-10-russia-rocket-failure
MS-10 is approaching top speed when it reaches a critical moment in its flight procedure: After 115 seconds of ascension, the rocket ejects most of its primary safety mechanism—the Jettisonable Emergency Escape Head Section (or the Sistema Avariynogo Spaseniya, SAS, in Russian)—from atop the Soyuz capsule. In the event of an explosion on the launchpad or an emergency in the first 90 seconds of flight, the main SAS would use beefy solid-rocket motors to pull the capsule holding the astronauts up and away from the core stage. But after 90 seconds of flight, the rocket is moving too fast for the capsule to be freed with a speed boost. The main SAS is dead weight, so it drops away, leaving a last-resort backup system in place below the capsule.
The next step in flight is the first stage separation. Here, the four 65-foot strap-ons separate from the rocket via propulsive gas jets, but while three of the boosters release from the core stage, the fourth clings to the rocket. On the joint connecting each booster to the core, a nozzle lid is supposed to open and release the gas, but on this last booster, the lid stays shut. A tiny separator sensor pin on the joint is bent by a little more than 6 degrees, enough to interfere with the sequence that tells the booster to release. The propulsive gas fires anyway, and the misdirection sends the booster careening into the core stage instead, tearing the core open.
