Imagine You, Journey aboard a Soyuz launched to the ISS.
A nightmare or a dream?
Close your eyes for a moment and try to imagine that one day next spring you will be one of
the astronauts who will leave from the Baikonur cosmodrome to reach the International Space
Station.
With you will be Russian cosmonauts Sergei Korsakov and Ivan Vagner.
You will stay on the ISS until next October, but before reaching your new home you will
have to face the longest nine minutes of your life.
Nine minutes...
This, in fact, is the duration of the flight that will take you from the ground to low
Earth orbit, 220 km above the ground...
Are you ready to live this adventure?
The Baikonur Cosmodrome, operated by the Russian Federation, is located in the middle of the
steppes of Kazakhstan and is a launch base from which you leave to reach the International
Space Station.
The complex is located about 200 kilometers from the Aral Sea.
It was built at the time of the Soviet Union and is the oldest launch base in the world,
full of history and stories related to space exploration: from Baikonur departed in 1957
the Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite, in 1958 the first living being launched into
space, the famous dog Laika, in 1961 Yuri Gagarin, the first man to fly in space, and
in 1963 the first woman: Valentina Tereškova.
The entire area destined for the cosmodrome measures about six thousand square kilometers,
with buildings and infrastructures of various types, such as large hangars where rocket
launchers are assembled and living areas for technicians and engineers.
More separate, the living quarters of the European and American astronauts, who, like
you, arrive in Kazakhstan a couple of weeks before the launch and are kept in partial
isolation, to finish their preparation and prevent them from catching any illnesses.
Things are different for Russian cosmonauts, who reside inside the cosmodrome for years
and study, learn, repeat and perfect the procedures necessary to guide their assigned spacecraft
in any situation.
But here you are just passing through.
You have done your training elsewhere and you will only be on the base for a fortnight,
just long enough to familiarise yourself with the capsule cabin and the launch and safety
procedures.
The capsule that will take you to the ISS is a Soyuz, which is one of the most reliable
Russian spacecrafts ever deployed in space.
Each one can carry up to three astronauts and consists of three modules.
The service module, the orbital module and the reentry module.
The orbital module is the upper part and carries the equipment needed for docking to the ISS.
The service module is the lower part and also carries the telecommunications equipment,
altitude control and solar panels.
The reentry module is located in the middle, and is what the astronauts occupy, during
launch: a single room of only 4 cubic meters.
The journey to the ISS, as we will see, can last six hours or two days, depending on the
mission profile.
The return one takes only three hours.
The three-stage rocket that is tasked with getting you into orbit also bears the same
name as the capsule, which means "union" in Russian.
It has an overall length of almost 50 meters, with a diameter that at the point of maximum
width, the first stage, reaches around 10 meters.
Its overall mass is 310 tons.
Thrust is produced by a mixture of kerosene and liquid oxygen, which burn together to
produce the power needed to carry up to 5 tons of payload into orbit.
Soyuz rockets have been used for more than half a century to launch manned spacecraft
and satellites into orbit, with almost zero failures.
And that makes you feel pretty comfortable.
At least until today, which is the day set for departure.
Together with your colleagues you have breakfast at six o'clock in the morning in the officers'
lounge of the German Titov building, then, as is the custom among Russian cosmonauts,
you visit the "little house", a tiny building where Yuri Gagarin spent his last night before
flying into space.
For others it is normal, but you, who are at your first flight, feel a certain emotion...
But it's already seven o'clock, and while the bus is taking you to the "dressing" building,
you see with a thump in your heart the huge silhouette of the rocket that is almost completing
the slow journey on the rails that from the hangar area is taking it to the launch pad.
The appointment for the final briefing is set for nine o'clock.
But you know these things very well...
Since you arrived at Baikonur you have already repeated several times all the technical steps,
as well as the boarding and launch simulation.
Already dressed, with your suits on, you are now at the foot of the rocket, in front of
the elevator door that is about to take you to the boarding platform, 49 meters above
the ground.
Now that it's getting serious and you're leaving for real, once you get to the top you stop
and look at the plain that stretches out all around you.
Below, the huge concrete square, and above the clear blue sky, made dazzling by the morning
sun.
You raise your head, to see if there is an "up there", a point, a place you can say is
right where I’m going.
But up there is only an indistinct ocean.
A door of light, you think to yourself.
Will we be able to go through it?
And then what?
But there's little time.
A technician checks your equipment again and decides that the time has come to enter the
capsule, enclosed within an envelope that has the task of protecting it until it passes
through the first layers of the atmosphere.
Other men check belts, instrumentation, contacts and radio frequencies, oxygen intakes and
controls.
Finally, they retreat with a gesture of greeting, and the hatch closes, leaving you alone.
You in the middle of the two veterans, sitting in the so-called "rookie seat".
There are still many minutes until departure.
Maybe the last few of your life, who knows?
Few anyway, to think about anything other than the obsessive repetition of what you
have to do, and especially feel.
Because the rocket below you is such a living thing that there is no breath or tremor that
cannot be interpreted as a "good" or "bad" sign.
Before long, the thrust of the engines will crush you to the seat, in a way that is annoying
even to your trained physique.
You'll be hurled hundreds of miles into the air and travel faster than any bullet through
the thin layer of atmosphere that envelops the planet, to emerge in a totally alien environment.
Alien at least to you, who are on your first flight experience, and envy the calm gaiety
of Sergei and Ivan standing beside you and firing off rapid-fire jokes.
But what if something doesn't work out?
"BE sure to join the Insane Curiosity Channel...
Click on the bell, you will help us to make products of ever higher quality!"
The critical phase, where something can really go wrong, is when the first stage boosters
are turned on for the first time on the launch pad.
At that moment the tanks are full of propellant and a malfunction can lead to a large and
dangerous explosion.
For this reason, there is a safety structure on top of the rocket called an ejection tower.
This is a small add-on rocket that has the ability to separate the end of the Soyuz where
the crew is located in order to eject it away from the launch pad in seconds.
The ejection can be set to occur automatically or with a manual command.
In the entire history of Soyuz, the ejection tower has only been used once, when in 1983
a faulty valve led to the release of large quantities of kerosene within seconds of engine
ignition.
The ejection tower detached the shuttle from the rest of the rocket and brought the two
cosmonauts to safety, but they had to deal with a sudden acceleration of 16 g for a few
seconds.
The capsule landed a few minutes later, braked by the parachutes, about four kilometers from
the ramp.
The crew, consisting of Gennady Strekalov and Vladimir Titov, fully recovered and the
two cosmonauts later participated in several other space missions.
And just as you are about to think the worst... the mission start buzzer goes off...
The go-ahead has been given for departure, and this is undoubtedly the most spectacular
moment for those on the ground watching.
Much less so for the three human beings sitting on 300 tons of propellant.
When the countdown is over, the four lateral boosters and the central engine fire up.
The powerful vertical thrust lifts the Soyuz off the ground and it begins its ascent.
At this point, everything happens very quickly.
The launcher tilts and starts to follow a parabola that is already oriented according
to the orbit that the Soyuz will have to follow after passing through the atmosphere.
The astronauts on board are subjected to an acceleration of 1.5 g, one and a half times
the average acceleration of gravity measured on the ground.
About 45 seconds into the launch, while you're holding your pale fingers crossed and thinking
"so far, so good," the rocket is now traveling at over 1,600 kilometers per hour and has
already reached an altitude of 11 kilometers.
Its structure has to withstand enormous pressures, while the capsule undergoes an acceleration
of 2 g.
About two minutes later, the altitude reached is more than 40 kilometers: the boosters of
the first stage have burned all the propellant and turn off, becoming a useless ballast.
For this reason, the first stage of the rocket is separated from the rest of the rocket when
it is switched off, so that it can return to Earth, with a calculated fall that causes
it to crash in an uninhabited area of Kazakhstan, more than 350 km away from the base.
Separation occurs simultaneously with the ignition of the second stage, with a jolt
that causes the crew to undergo a 3.5 g acceleration.
It is the most physically stressful moment of the entire mission, although the discomfort
will only last a few seconds.
Fortunately, the various procedures are for the moment fully automatic and do not require
direct intervention on the on-board instrumentation.
While the second stage does its job, providing thrust for three minutes, the envelope that
keeps the shuttle safe separates into two parts, destined to fall to Earth.
At this point, for the first time since the launch, which took place just 5 minutes before,
the vehicle is totally exposed to the space environment and the sunlight can enter for
the first time inside the cockpit through the portholes until then obscured by the external
envelope.
For the astronauts, it is the confirmation that the last big push is coming.
The third stage activates and a few moments later the separation of the second stage takes
place, which has run out of propellant and can return to Earth.
The third and final stage burns propellant for 4 minutes, bringing the crew and the Soyuz
to an altitude of 220 kilometers, while the speed progressively reaches 13,250 kilometers
per hour.
At 8 minutes and 40 seconds after departure from Baikonur, the Soyuz finally reaches low
orbit, and the shuttle can also separate from the third and final stage.
After the great acceleration, the astronauts start to experience microgravity, that is
the almost total weightlessness they will have to live with during their stay on the
station.
The Soyuz meanwhile "finishes its homework": it opens the solar panels to give additional
energy to its systems and extends the antennas for communications.
Does the most relaxing part of the trip begin?
No, and you know it.
Now the worst begins... because reaching the 420 km of the station's orbit will not be
a joke.
Until recently, it took an average of two days to reach the ISS from Earth.
The procedure was then modified and now takes less than six hours to complete, and some
Soyuz recently made it in just over three hours...
This may surprise more than a few...
Six hours to get to the ISS seems like a long time, but even three hours is a long time,
considering that the Soyuz speed is about 28,000 kilometers per hour.
No one thinks that you should get there in a minute, but why does it even take hours?
The fact is that the spacecraft does not arrive directly to the orbit of the ISS, but, as
we have seen, is first positioned on an orbit at about 220 kilometers from Earth.
Here are verified the conditions in a series of tests that once lasted even 36 revolutions
around the Earth, or 48 hours.
In recent years the time has been reduced to 6 revolutions, 9 hours, while recently
new procedures have been successfully tested that have reduced the stay in the parking
orbit to only two revolutions, 3 hours.
During the "stopover" the astronauts still have at their disposal the Soyuz orbital module,
containing beds, food supplies and toilets.
After that, if all tests are positive, the Soyuz resumes its journey, putting in pursuit
of the ISS along a path quite complicated, which requires three engine ignitions.
At this point, with the ISS and the Soyuz travelling at practically the same speed,
very small variations in speed will be enough to get the docking.
This maneuver is not easy, but fortunately in recent years has been fully automated.
Once the docking is completed it will be possible to open an airlock with the ISS, which the
astronauts will finally be able to access.
No hurry though... it will take a couple of more hours to first verify that there are
no problems with the opening of the hatches.
Then, for you and your fellow adventurers, the doors to paradise will open... a window
to infinite space and our beautiful Earth.