Table of contentsSummaryIntroductionObjectivesAnalysisDiscussionConclusionSummaryIn this essay, I will explain how the Soyuz 11 mission went from a success to the most tragic for the three courageous astronauts Georgi Dobrovolski, Vladislav Volkov and Viktor Patsayev in their fatal mission. In this essay, I will cover a bit of the history of the mission's development, focusing particularly on the safety measures that were implemented for the astronauts. I will also explain why these measures were not sufficient and why they failed on this mission and not on previous ones, as was the case for missions before Soyuz 11. In addition to showing how this affected future space missions, not only for the Soyuz missions, but also for all other space programs. Another aspect to consider is the materials and engineering processes used to make the Soyuz 11 rocket. This will indicate whether they were suitable for a mission to space under extreme stress. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essayIntroductionFor the essay, I will cover one of the most famous accidents in the history of space travel, because it led the first three men to die in space and explain how this tragic event happened. In 1971, the Soyuz 11 mission sent a crew of three astronauts into space to join the Salyut 1 space station. Salyut 1 was built by the Soviet Union in 1999 and was the first space station ever created. It was a response to the Americans' success in landing on the moon. Salyut 1 was launched on April 19, 1971. As it was unmanned when it took off, just two days later Soyuz 10 departed with a crew of three with the intention of remaining on the space station for 30 days to conduct experiments. Although they were able to reach and lock down the station, a problem with the hatch prevented them from entering. This caused them to return home early and fail the mission. Interestingly, upon their return to Earth, the Soyuz 10's air supply was contaminated and therefore toxic, but this had no lasting effects on the astronauts as they all returned healthy and safe. except. Due to this failure of Soyuz 10 and the desperation of the Soviets at not having Salyut 1 unmanned, they launched Soyuz 11 on June 6, 1971. The mission started well as the Soyuz 11 crew docked successfully, is entered the space station, and became the first man in history to occupy a space station. The crew spent 23 days on the space station where they completed 383 orbits around Earth. They were able to perform more than 140 different experiments, including measurements of radiation exposure, observation of space, the Moon and Earth, and much more. The mission was supposed to last a full 30 days, but due to problems with the space station, including an electrical fire, the mission was shortened to 23 days and the crew departed on the 24th day. But in the early hours of June 30, 1971, the Soviet Union was ready to welcome back its heroes, as it noted that the landing had been successful with parachutes deployed. The shuttle was in good condition and had no external damage, so they were shocked to find that the crew was dead inside. Objectives The objective of the test is to investigate what happened during the Soyuz 11's return flight to see what went wrong that led to it. to the entire dying crew. AnotherThe goal is to find out which components of the space shuttle failed, causing these deaths, as well as whether the materials and processes used in manufacturing the rocket were suitable for this type of mission in space. They also needed proper testing and analysis to determine if the shuttle could withstand re-entry into the atmosphere. Another aspect to consider is how this could have been avoided by using more advanced materials and processes to construct the shuttle. As well as the effect of their deaths on the world and the space industry. AnalysisFirst of all, to determine how the astronauts died, we must consider all aspects. According to reports, after trying to get a response from the crew, they opened the hatch and found the three men on their couches, motionless, with dark blue spots on their faces and streaks of blood. coming out of the nose. and the ears. They removed them from the descent module, which was a difficult task given that the diameter of the match was 60 cm. Dobrovolski was the only one still warm. Doctors performed artificial respiration as they thought there might be a chance of resuscitating the body as it was still warm, but this had no effect on the outcome despite attempts to resuscitate all limbs of the crew by an hour despite the absence of official reports. of what the doctors did. According to their reports, the cause of death was suffocation. With suffocation being one of the known causes of death, the Soviets decided to investigate what this meant for the crew and whether there were other causes of death besides suffocation. Investigating further, some thought it might have something to do with the air supply to the astronauts, as the air supply was an issue in Soyuz 10, as the air was contaminated for Soyuz 10, they so thought it might have been the same problem. The Soviets wanted another mission to Salyut 1 as soon as possible, so the engineers and scientists didn't have long to completely resolve this problem, but they did it as best they could. As the investigation into the shuttle progressed, further analysis showed that the air supply was not responsible for the astronaut's death. As doctors and the control center dealt with this tragedy, they began to suspect that it was decompression that was causing it all, which meant that the crew would have been exposed to the vacuum of the 'space. This was first thought of when the control center received radio silence for most of the descent, which they believed was due to a radio system failure, but it could actually be that the crew does not respond. Once the bodies were taken back for further investigation, they found that the bodies had been dead for approximately 30 minutes, but more worryingly, they discovered that the crew had been exposed to the vacuum of space for 12 minutes, proving that they were the first to die. in space. The final piece of evidence needed to confirm that it was decompression that caused the deaths was the fact that all of the crew's blood had been boiled, which only happens when a human body has been decompressed. The autopsy, carried out by 17 doctors, showed that in total the three astronauts suffered from brain hemorrhages, subcutaneous hemorrhages, damaged eardrums and bleeding from the ears, as well as nitrogen, oxygen and carbon dioxide absent. their blood. To conduct in-depth research, they assembled a 12-member team who had all been commissioned by the state to resolve the Soyuz 11 tragedy. They knewalready that Soyuz 11 had not encountered any major problems during the entire mission because the crew was able to get up and then connect to the space station so they knew that it must be the descent module which was where the problem had occurred. When the researchers retrieved the descent module's black box, they found that the mercury (the equipment they used to measure pressure in the descent module) dropped from 915 mm to 50 mm in 115 seconds. This shows that depressurization occurred at that time because there would have been no air in the descent module, which would explain how the crew all suffocated due to descent module decompression . Looking at the timing of the pressure drop, it was when the module was at an altitude of 150 kilometers, which is the height at which the modules separate from each other. As they had understood when the decompression occurred, they now had to discover the cause of this problem, which left them with two options. The first of these was the premature opening of one of the two values ​​located at the top of the descent module and the second was that there was a leak from the hatch which was allowing air to escape. They now had to determine what effect was causing this, so they turned once again to the black box to find anything that might help them. The method used by the team consisted of calculating a pressure loss curve for one of the valve openings, then comparing it to the module's black box data on the actual pressure loss that occurred and observing that the curves matched perfectly. Now that they knew what determined decompression, they now had to find out why only one of the valves was opening. The idea of ​​an incorrect control or circuit malfunction was immediately dismissed as both valves were connected to the same electrical circuit and were therefore doing everything at the same time as each other, which would have meant that the two valves were open and not just one. further calculations with the fact that the radius of the valve was 2 cm and the volume of air in the descent module, they found that the air passing through the valve would have been at the speed of sound. With this rate of air loss, the module pressure would be close to zero after only sixty seconds of opening the valve. With that understood, there was a serious question to be asked: why the crew were not wearing their spacesuits while in the descent module. Spacesuits work by surrounding the astronaut in a bubble of air so that he or she has a constant supply of air and does not feel the effects of decompression if the descent module were compromised. Instead, the crew was asked to enter the module in a "shirt-sleeve environment" and not in their spacesuits. This was seriously investigated, because if the crew had worn the spacesuits, they would have been alive when they landed. It turned out that the decision not to use a spacesuit had been made years before Soyuz 11. In 1964, they ordered the designers of the space mission's modules to make it so that it could accommodate three astronauts. However, when they finished it, they discovered that they couldn't accommodate three people with spacesuits, so instead of designing and building a new one, they decided to simply make so that the crew travels there in a “shirt-sleeve environment”. Another major mistake that was made later was the decision not to fill the installation tanks with air for the entire crew so that if the module.