Hacker News Reader

Comment by samwillis | Hacker News Reader

> is this just usual Russian incompetence?

I don't think there is an impression of that or really ever has been. Russia has successfully launched humans into space more regularly and at a lower cost than the US for the last 60 years. (Well until the last few years)

I think it's more likely that this is just an occurrence of something akin to the birthday paradox and sometimes things just happen. It's the narrative due to the current (horrendous) political direction of Russian foreign policy that then colours the interpretation of these events.

Edit: Your comment has been downvoted significantly and was briefly "dead" I think unfairly, and while I disagree with part of it and don't believe the sabotage hypothesis, you are asking the questions that most people will be asking. The reply's are a worthwhile discussion in my view, and so I vouched for it.

View on HN

'last 60 years' doesn't really mean much when it's been obvious in the past 2 decades or so that their capabilities have been deteriorating rapidly compared to what they once were.

They haven't sent an interplanetary science mission in decades, their next-generation vehicles are constantly delayed or unreliable, Nauka was an entire 12 years behind schedule and so on.

Now on top of that, they're under heavy sanctions and are experiencing further brain drain from people fleeing conscription. It's clear that they're having to cut more and more corners to keep up. Plus, for Russia it has only been 30 years, the time under the USSR should not be considered comparable considering that much of their aerospace talent was in/from Ukraine (which is also why Ukraine punched above its weight in the space sector).

Russia also simply hasn't invested into maintaining the necessary pool of talent. We're starting to get to the point where the people who had significant experience from the soviet space program will be starting to become less and less available.

> which is also why Ukraine punched above its weight in the space sector

In 1991 it was expected that independent Ukraine, a 52 million strong country, will basically be the next Spain.

What did it punch in the space sector in the last 30 years? They did indeed inherit a huge chunk of USSR industry and science and nothing went out of it.

Ukraine supplied engines for Vega's upper stage, co-developed the Antares and half of Firefly Aerospace's operations were in Ukraine office before the US forced them to divest from there. Considering that only a few months later Firefly would reach orbit, I think it reflects well on the capabilities Ukraine also must've had relative to their status as the poorest country in Europe.

They kept launching Tsyklon-2, Tsyklon-3, and Zenit-2 rockets. They developed Zenit-3 and Dnepr rockets from Soviet designs. The launches dropped off after 2014 since launch locations were Russian. Ukranian company builds the first stage for Antares rocket. They were working on Cyclone-4M rocket but war delayed if not canceled it.

> In 1991 it was expected that independent Ukraine, a 52 million strong country, will basically be the next Spain.

This was expected by who? At independence, Ukraine was one of the poorest countries in Europe, and it remains that way today.

This was expected by Ukrainians. They were talking about being the new France.

Ukraine fell behind even as far as their immediate neighbours are concerned.

The information about their participation in space programs were enlightening, though.

This is outdated, unfortunately. The Russian space program has suffered from immense brain-drain, budget cuts, and corruption, all of which have worn it down over 30 years and resulted in vastly reduced quality control.

In the past handful of years, on ISS alone, there have been: * Progress coolant leak * Soyuz coolant leak * Nauka module rogue thruster sending entire station spinning out of control * Soyuz hull leak * Launch failure with two crew aboard * Various low-grade problems on older modules especially Zvezda

I might be forgetting something, that’s just off the top of my head. No, this amount of serious issues is not normal “space is hard” stuff, and nowhere near as many problems have happened with any of the other ISS partner countries.

This is not to mention a steady rise in unscrewed launch failures, especially for Proton but also for Soyuz. Russia was pissing away its dominant position in commercial launch long before sanctions.

The once-great Soviet space program is dying with the world’s longest whimper.

Why "unfortunately"? When space program of basically bigger size North Korea suffers of brain drain and incompetence, it's a good thing by all means (I'm Russian myself)

I mean that what the Russian state as a whole has become—including a space program that once made humanity proud—is unfortunate. The current Russian state (space program included) becoming an international pariah cannot happen soon enough, and I would love to see the other ISS partners think seriously about how to continue without Russia (not easy but doable—main capability that must be duplicated is the ability to reboost the station, which is hardly a big unknown problem).

It wasn’t that long ago they drilled a hole in a Soyuz, then patched it with epoxy and sent it up anyway, only for the epoxy to come out and cause a leak.

As far as I can tell, the evidence for the hole being drilled then epoxied on Earth amounts to nobody wanting to believe the alternative (that it was drilled while in orbit.)

Here is the hole. Personally, I don't see any trace of epoxy in or around this hole: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3f/Hole_in_...

(To be clear, it's the small hole, not the big one next to it. The small hole next to the paint marred by a slipping drill bit.)

The epoxy was applied on the outside and was later covered by insulation. Here is a picture from the EVA where they cut away the insulation and located it: https://i.insider.com/5c112efc4a8213310205a17b

I’ve worked with epoxy quite a bit, and delaminating is one of its failure modes. That is, sometimes it flakes off cleanly without leaving much behind.

Having said that, it’s hard to believe that there wouldn’t be traces of epoxy inside that very rough hole, or in the bare metal exposed by the drill bit. So it seems odd to me also.

Also not that long ago, they tried launching a Proton M which had the angular velocity sensors installed upside down: https://www.russianspaceweb.com/proton_glonass49.html#culpri...

Looks like decades of rampant corruption and political violence are not exactly good for high-tech industry. Who would have thought?

Once in KSP Iinstalled MechJeb (a modded autopilot component) upsidedown and my rocket failed in precisely this way, trying to make a u-turn right off the launch pad. Pretty funny to see it happen IRL, since nobody got hurt.

I don't think you can attribute this failure to a political system. Space is hard. NASA's Genesis sample return capsule also failed due to an upside-down sensor[1].

Fun fact about the Proton M failure: the sensor was designed so that it could only be mounted correctly, but apparently it had been forced in the wrong way somehow. Possibly with a hammer. From [2]:

By July 13, investigators simulated the improper installation of the DUS angular velocity sensors on the actual hardware. As it turned out, it would be very difficult to do but not impossible. To achieve that personnel would need to use procedures and instruments not certified either by the design documentation or the installation instructions. As a result, the plate holding the sensors sustained damage. Yet, when the hardware recovered from the accident was delivered to GKNPTs Khrunichev, it was discovered that the nature of the damage to the plate had almost exactly matched the simulated version.

[1] https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9331-crashed-spacecra...

[2] https://www.russianspaceweb.com/proton_glonass49.html#culpri...

They’ve had a bunch of incidents on the ISS over the past couple of years.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com