14 DAY TRIAL // During a lengthy spacewalk yesterday, International Space Station commander Sergei Volkov and flight engineer Oleg Kononenko removed one of the explosive bolts from the Soyuz TMA-12 capsule, believed to have been the cause for the last two consecutive ballistic re-entries executed by the Soyuz TMA-11 and TMA 10 while returning back to Earth with two members of the crew on the space station. The capsule is said to hold a total of 10 such bolts, each with an explosive power equivalent to that of an M-80 firecracker.
As the Soyuz capsule prepares to re-enter Earth's atmosphere the 10 explosive bolts holding the Soyuz crew module and the equipment compartment are detonated, enabling the two to separate. However, during the last two re-entries it appears that the separation took place somehow later than expected, causing the crew compartment to hit Earth's atmosphere at an incorrect angle and facing the wrong way in the case of the TMA-11 spacecraft.
As a result, the return of the crew of Expedition 17 in April not only that subjected the astronauts to forces exceeding the specifications of the spacecraft but also placed them in unnecessary danger since the capsule entered the atmosphere hatch first instead of heat shield first, which inflicted significant damage on the spacecraft.
The removed bolt will be returned back to Earth in October when the mission of Expedition 17 is scheduled to end. During the six-hour spacewalk, the longest ever for both Volkov and Kononenko, NASA astronaut Greg Chamitoff was instructed to climb inside the Soyuz capsule in order to avoid being cut off from the escape routes in case something were to go wrong.
"We do not like to separate the crew from the escape vehicle. Therefore Greg will be staying in there. He will have some laptops, books and computers to work on while he's there," said flight director Bob Dempsey before the spacewalk."
Next Tuesday, Volkov and Kononenko will execute another spacewalk during which they will prepare a docking port for the arrival of the following compartment next year. Chamitoff will again sit in the Soyuz capsule, which will return all three astronauts back to Earth in October.