April 29th 2008
Kazakhstan
420 kms (260 miles) off course in Kazakhstan......
The Russian Soyuz spacecraft that So-Yeon was onboard returned to Earth, but came down more than 400km (250 miles) away from its planned touchdown point. The crew are safe, but were subjected to severe G-forces during re-entry.
On board were Yi So-yeon, South Korea's first astronaut, Yuri Malenchenko from Russia and American Peggy Whitson, who broke Nasa's record for time in space. The Russian TMA-11 landing capsule was returning from a mission to the International Space Station. The crew had to endure a ballistic re-entry.
In this mode of re-entry the trajectory is steeper than in a controlled re-entry and the capsule rotates around its axis of trajectory to increase stability. The steeper trajectory reduces flight time and increases deceleration. This had the effect of applying up to 10g gravity load to the crew. During the entry into the dense layers of the atmosphere the descent module of the Soyuz vehicle initially flew toward the ground not with the part of the vehicle where the heat shield is located, but rather with the hatch forward. As a result of excessive thermal loads the hatch is considerably scorched. Thus the aerial of the radio transmitter melted off and communication with the vehicle was interrupted. A portion of the pressure equalization valve located on the outside of the vehicle also burned off it was reported.
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