Soyuz rocket failure explained by former astronaut

Video from the channel CBC News about Soyuz (cohete), linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 11:18. Language: English. Video type: News.

This news piece from Canada's CBC covers the failure of the Soyuz launcher during the Soyuz MS-10 mission, which was meant to carry American astronaut Nick Hague and a Russian cosmonaut to the International Space Station. Minutes after liftoff from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, one of the boosters failed. The capsule separated from the rocket and began an emergency descent, and the crew landed safely.

Chris Hadfield, a former station commander, explains how the rocket is divided into stages and how the automatic system that separates the spacecraft from a failing launcher works. He compares the ballistic descent to a stone thrown straight down into a pond: it's steeper and subjects the crew to more acceleration than a normal reentry, but it's survivable and crews train for it. Reporting from Moscow, correspondent Chris Brown places the failure just before the two-minute mark of the flight. He estimates about eight g during the descent, compared with two or three on a roller coaster.

Roscosmos announced an investigation and suspended crewed flights. Hadfield warns that the station's three occupants will be left without relief for months. He recalls that after the Challenger (1986) and Columbia (2003) accidents, it took years for the shuttle to fly again. The flight of Canadian David Saint-Jacques, scheduled for December 20, is left in doubt. Russia was at the time the only way to reach the station, and NASA was paying it about 80 million dollars per seat.