Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum

Full Version: Russian Soyuz Booster Hit by Lightening While Ascending
You're currently viewing a stripped down version of our content. View the full version with proper formatting.
It was launched from Plesetsk cosmodrome (in the subarctic forest about 500 miles north of Moscow) carrying a GLONASS navigation satellite (the Russian equivalent of the American GPS system).

The lightening strike looked pretty spectacular, but the booster continued to function normally and succeeded in putting its satellite into the proper orbit.

[Image: iuZUdeoJexGdFcRC8qN2N3-1200-80.jpg]
(May 28, 2019 12:51 AM)Yazata Wrote: [ -> ]. . . The lightening strike looked pretty spectacular, but the booster continued to function normally and succeeded in putting its satellite into the proper orbit.


It's less than six months away from the 50th anniversary of Apollo 12 being struck twice by lightning. Once at a height of a mile and a half (2.4 km) and again at three and a half miles (5.6 km) -- 36.5 seconds into the flight and 16 seconds later, respectively. Only the spacecraft went haywire, the rocket itself maintained its trajectory.

It's astonishing that the glut of expertise on hand at the time didn't seem to know that there was a way to reboot the fuel cells, the computers, and altitude indicator disabled by the discharges. It came down to the young son of a cattle rancher and minister mother rescuing the mission by remembering an anomaly during a test which he had tracked down to a little known "SCE" system. He suggested they try switching SCE to Aux. It worked, the power and instrumentation returned. The same engineer (John Aaron) later made a variety of critical decisions that brought the recovery of damaged Apollo 13 to a successful conclusion.