Explosive Spacewalk?

By Nancy Atkinson - July 03, 2008 08:38 AM UTC | Space Exploration

Explosive bolts that help detach the Russian Soyuz capsule from the International Space Station may be the source of the

problems the spacecraft has encountered

during the last two landings. Investigative space journalist and

Jim Oberg

at

MSNBC

, who is one of the best experts on the inner workings of the Russian space program recently wrote a

very interesting article

detailing Russian engineers' plans to fix the problem: have two Russian cosmonauts conduct a spacewalk on July 10 to remove one of the explosive bolts and bring it inside the space station. The bolts, Oberg says, packs twice the explosive force of an M-80 firecracker when ignited, and the cosmonauts will be handling the bolts directly during what will be a very delicate, if not dramatic, operation.

Oberg reports that Russian space engineers say the bolts at one particular location failed to work properly during each of the two previous Soyuz landings, in October 2007 and then in April 2008. As a result, in each case the landing capsule was twisted out of proper orientation and underwent excess heating on unshielded surfaces before tearing loose from the propulsion module and falling to Earth.

NASA has scheduled a press briefing on July 8 to discuss the spacewalk, but Oberg uncovered details about the spacewalk from status reports and discussions with NASA engineers. The engineers in Houston said that, to their knowledge, no such pyrotechnic device has ever been brought into the space station in its 10-year history.

There are five pairs of explosive bolts that break the connections between the spacecraft's crew capsule and its propulsion module during descent. Russian experts told NASA at one particular location, position 5, apparently failed to fire during both previous Soyuz descents, preventing a clean separation.

The two cosmonauts, station commander Sergey Volkov and flight engineer Oleg Konenenko will remove the position 5 bolt and place it in a shielded safety canister that was brought to the ISS on the last shuttle mission in May for this spacewalk. So obviously, the plan for this spacewalk has been in the works for quite some time.

Russians engineers assured NASA that the remaining four latches will be adequate to hold the two modules together during any other maneuvers in space.

Check out

Jim's article

for more details.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com