– What is this special diet for the crews before returning to Earth? Astronauts say that during the descent from orbit, they are very thirsty …
Andrey Borisenko, pilot-cosmonaut, Hero of Russia:
– The astronauts are prescribed the so-called salt supplements a few days before the descent. They allow you to retain water inside the body. This is important for the normal well-being and functioning of the body.
– Because there is nowhere during the descent there is no chance to go to the toilet?
– No. The fact is that in conditions of weightlessness, the body intensively gives off liquid.
On Earth, this would be called a lack of fluid in the body. In order to bring the body into the desired condition from this point of view, it is necessary that there is more fluid. How to do it? If the astronaut simply starts drinking more, the liquid will immediately come out of him in a natural way. In order to delay this liquid somewhat, salt additives are used.
And to drink – yes – I want to. Especially after landing.
– The utility compartment of the Soyuz spacecraft is mostly free during the launch. And during landing, it is packed with loads that need to be burned when the utility compartment separates and burns up in the dense layers of the atmosphere. That is, in principle, the crew does not have any additional free space during the descent. For 3.5 hours, do they sit tightly shoulder to shoulder?
– Cosmonauts sit in the spacecraft for at least 3.5 hours during the launch. Before going into the utility compartment, when the spacecraft has already entered orbit, it is necessary to carry out a series of tests with the spacecraft onboard systems, to check the spacecraft tightness.
– On Earth, putting on spacesuits is a whole procedure. And who helps space people put on spacesuits in zero gravity?
– Cosmonauts must put on their spacesuits on their own. You can help each other. But in the event of some abnormal situation – depressurization of a ship or station, if a person is without a spacesuit – he must be able to put it on on his own. Therefore, we go through such training.
– Is there any standard for putting on a spacesuit? Did Peresild and Shipenko meet it?
Andrey Kondratyev, head of the cosmonaut training department for manned transport spacecraft at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center:
– There is such an unspoken, optional. When we do this kind of preparation for the flight, we try to teach the astronaut to fit in five minutes.
– Before the start, the crew is helped to take places in the ship. And what happens before the descent from orbit? First, as I understand it, they need to squeeze into the descent vehicle through the utility compartment, clogged with debris. Then they must fit themselves into the cradles. Then connect the spacesuits to the ship's ventilation system. And this is in a volume smaller than the cabin of the old “Zaporozhets”.
Andrey Borisenko:
– In zero gravity, many things are much easier to do than on Earth. For example, to be accommodated in a lodgment, to connect all connectors to a spacesuit. On the ground, you are not in a very comfortable position for such actions. But if help is needed, then in a spaceship in orbit, the guys usually help each other.
– And Shipenko and Peresild know how to quickly take up space on the ship and quickly leave it, connect the life support systems of the spacesuit? In general, what was it necessary to give the filmmakers at a minimum for these three months so that you were calm, that they would not get confused in the ship?
Andrey Kondratyev:
– There is no special standard for how long it takes to occupy space in the ship. It all depends on the situation. I will say this: the cosmonauts must act as quickly as possible, with utmost concentration, as clearly as possible, because in many situations, which we call emergency – fires, depressurization, when it is necessary to urgently leave the station, urgently undock and urgently descend, the count goes to minutes.
– And Shipenko and Peresild had such trainings?
– Necessarily. This is an integral and very important part of the entire preparation process. This is exactly what training in emergency procedures is. The crew must act as a single organism. Quickly, smoothly, everyone should clearly understand what to do, where to go, what to wear – such trainings were necessarily carried out.
– Filmmakers trained as part of a crew with Anton Shkaplerov. Naturally, they did not have a single training session with Oleg Novitsky on the ground. In this situation, how could the crew act in concert together if they met their new commander already in orbit?
Andrey Kondratyev:
– This is a serious issue, we discussed it for a very long time even before the start of this project. But we have built the training system in such a way that space flight participants can interact with any commander. And this is achieved by uniform requirements for interaction within the crew, for interaction with the MCC, uniform requirements for the implementation of all procedures. Therefore, we could say with a high degree of confidence that, just as they trained with Anton Shkaplerov, with whom they flew to the station, they would act in the same way, in which case, with Oleg Novitsky.
– Professional cosmonauts have been preparing for a flight on the Soyuz for years. The filmmakers had 3.5 months. There are already jokes on the Web that the main thing in the preparation of an actress and director at the CTC was to teach them not to press buttons and not to climb anywhere. In fact, what minimum knowledge should have been in order for you guys to be allowed to fly?
Andrey Kondratyev:
– Of course, what they say on social networks is not true. Both Klim and Yulia had something to do on the ship. They weren't just passengers. They were assigned certain functional responsibilities. Of course, these responsibilities cannot be compared with those of professional cosmonauts – for example, a commander or a flight engineer.
For us, training of this kind, when there was one professional cosmonaut and two flight participants in the crew, was really the first time. And in this regard, we also thought a lot about what to prepare them for, how to prepare, how to adapt our training system for such a crew. A lot of internal research was carried out: in general, as far as, in principle, the commander can control the ship alone. And we got the results that, in principle, the commander alone can control the ship.
– But the commander made a special additional remote control …
Andrey Kondratyev:
– Yes, there was a special console. The commander, being in his central seat in a tied state, cannot reach all the controls. These are the controls that are concentrated in the area of the right and left seats. These are mainly valves of the oxygen line system. It was precisely on the space flight participants, who were located in the right and left seats, and these duties were entrusted and, at the command of the commander, they controlled these valves.
– What happens in the ship after it separates from the station and prepares to launch? What are the responsibilities of the crew? Or is only the automatic system working all 3.5 hours?
Andrey Borisenko:
– The process of launching the ship cannot be completely at the mercy of automation. The crew, at a minimum, monitors the operation of the onboard systems and, in addition, sometimes issues certain commands at certain stages. Even in a normal situation, not to mention an abnormal one. And as far as I understand, the guys went through the descent completely normally – at least I have no information that something somewhere did not work and I had to work out an emergency situation …
After the ship is separated from the station, the orientation of the ship is built. After that, at a certain moment, the engines are turned on for braking, the ship works out an impulse, then the ship is divided into compartments. After that, the descent vehicle will separately enter the dense layers of the atmosphere, and separately from the utility compartment and the instrument-assembly compartment. The instrument-assembly compartment and the utility compartment will burn up in the dense layers of the atmosphere, and the descent vehicle will pass through the dense layers of the atmosphere, lose speed to the required speed, then the parachute system will work, and then the soft landing engines will be turned on and landing.
– Astronauts say that the descent is more difficult than the start. How does the crew feel?
Andrey Borisenko:
– The process of working out the braking impulse is felt as if you were sitting behind the wheel of a car, braked at an intersection and suddenly a gaping driver flies into the back of the car. Like that.
Then the descent vehicle begins to rotate. This is not a strong spin, however, it is felt tactilely. The overloads begin to increase after the spacecraft enters the atmosphere and the maximum overload is 4-4.5 G (a person's weight increases 4-5 times). We are in the dense layers of the atmosphere, there is no connection with the Earth. Only snatches of conversation are heard. Then another strong blow – and we are at home.
