In the afternoon of 11 October, the spacecraft “Soyuz-MS-10”, launched to the International Space Station made an emergency stop. According to Roscosmos, at 119 seconds into the flight there was a sudden shutdown of engines of the second stage. The crew consisting of Alexei Ovchinin and nick Haig landed safely in Kazakhstan, but do crash the consequences are. According to the Executive Director of the Russian space Agency Sergei Krikalev, space station may be left without humans on Board.
The fact is that currently on the ISS there are three people: Alexander Gerst, Sergei Prokofiev and the Serine Augen-Chancellor. According to the schedule, they must return to Earth inside the spacecraft “Soyuz MS-09” very soon — on December 13. If up to this point, the station will not fly another ship with a new crew, it will not remain a single person.
According to Sergei Krikalev, specially for such cases, the ISS provides an unmanned mode. However, he says that the Federal space Agency will do everything possible to not enable it — originally the station was created only for manned flights.
Perhaps the crew Gerst, Prokofiev and Augen-Chancellor will be in orbit a little longer than planned. But how much to delay the date not the life of the spacecraft “Soyuz MS-09” is not more than 210 days, and he arrived in June. Such a short time is that the engine management system uses a hydrogen peroxide that decomposes.
To prevent the transition to unmanned mode, Roscosmos will change the flight program. At the moment we know that the launch of the next “Union” can take place ahead of time, and the launch of the cargo ship “Progress of MS” can be postponed indefinitely.
What do you think might happen to the ISS if the change is unmanned? Write your guesses in the comments or in our Telegram chat.
Because of the accident “Soyuz MS-10” MKS may switch to unmanned mode
Ramis Ganiev