List of space accidents

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Challenger disaster (January 28, 1986)
False start of a Chinese CZ-3B (February 15, 1996)
Wreck of the launch pad on which a Brazilian missile crashed in 2003

This is a chronological list of space accidents in which people were killed, injured or in acute danger of death during or in connection with a specific space mission .

timeline

date Art incident dead
December 14, 1966 unmanned

The second made copy of the new Soyuz spaceship was to be launched on an unmanned test flight. Since the engines were not working correctly, the take-off was aborted on the launch pad. 27 minutes later, while the rocket was defueling, the cosmonaut emergency rescue system ignited , causing the entire rocket to catch fire and explode shortly afterwards. At least one person was killed.

001
January 27, 1967 manned

On board an Apollo command module, fire broke out during a launch simulation of the rocket on the launch table. The three astronauts Virgil Grissom , Edward H. White and Roger B. Chaffee died.

003
April 24, 1967 manned At Soyuz 1 , several problems with the power supply and attitude control occurred in orbit. On landing, the main parachute remained in the container, the reserve parachute could not unfold in the slipstream of the non-ejectable auxiliary parachute, and the landing capsule fell. Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov died in the impact. 001
November 15, 1967 manned An American rocket plane type X-15A came in 80 km altitude out of control and broke during re-entry into the atmosphere. The pilot Michael Adams was killed. 001
April 14, 1970 manned On the American Apollo 13 mission, an oxygen tank exploded 55 hours after takeoff. The planned moon landing had to be canceled, all three crew members were rescued. In 1995 the drama was made into a film, see Apollo 13 (film) . 000
June 29, 1971 manned During the landing of the return capsule of the Soyuz 11 spacecraft, the cosmonauts Georgi Dobrowolski , Viktor Pazajew and Vladislav Volkov suffocated . A fresh air valve had opened too early when the service module was blown off after the braking maneuver, so that the breathing air escaped from the return capsule. Pressure suits were not worn in the capsule. 003
June 26, 1973 unmanned When a ready -to- launch Kosmos 3M rocket exploded on the launch pad, nine people were killed at the Plesezk Cosmodrome . 009
0April 5th 1975 manned In the Soyuz 18-1 mission , the third stage separation failed, the cosmonauts were rescued by the normal landing system, but suffered internal injuries. 000
March 18, 1980 unmanned During the refueling, a Vostok 2M rocket exploded directly on the launch pad of the Soviet Plesetsk space base . 48 people were killed. 048
March 19, 1981 unmanned After the successful countdown exercise on the first space shuttle, six engineers inhaled pure nitrogen. Two of the men died. 02
September 26, 1983 manned During the launch, the Soyuz T-10-1 launcher caught fire on the launch table and exploded. The spacecraft with the cosmonauts was pulled from the rocket by the automated rescue system , the crew remained uninjured. 000
January 28, 1986 manned

The space shuttle Challenger broke 73 seconds after takeoff. Seven astronauts ( Dick Scobee , Michael Smith , Ronald McNair , Ellison Onizuka , Judith Resnik , Gregory Jarvis and Christa McAuliffe ) died.

007th
January 25, 1995 unmanned A Chinese carrier rocket of the type CZ-2E crashed after takeoff. According to official information, debris killed 21 residents of a village, according to western media reports around 120. 120
February 15, 1996 unmanned A few seconds after taking off from the Xichang Cosmodrome, a Chinese CZ-3B with a commercial Intelsat communications satellite deviated from its course and hit a village only a few kilometers away, where the almost fully fueled rocket exploded. Media and Western experts were not allowed to the scene of the accident. The Chinese leadership officially confirmed 6 dead and 57 injured, unofficial sources say up to 500 dead. 6 ... 500
October 15, 2002 unmanned A Soyuz U rocket fell back onto the launch platform just seconds after the launch in Plesetsk and exploded. A soldier was killed by the blast wave in a neighboring building. 001
0February 1, 2003 manned

On its return to Earth, the Columbia space shuttle was destroyed due to damage to the heat shield during launch. Six American astronauts and one Israeli astronaut died ( Rick Husband , William C. McCool , Michael P. Anderson , David M. Brown , Kalpana Chawla , Laurel Clark, and Ilan Ramon ).

007th
August 22, 2003 unmanned

A Brazilian launcher VLS-1 exploded at launch preparations and killed 21 technicians.

021st
October 31, 2014 manned In a test flight crashed SpaceShipTwo - prototype VSS Enterprise from. One of the two pilots, Peter Siebold , was able to save himself by parachute, Mike Alsbury was killed. 001
October 11, 2018 manned

Shortly after the Soyuz MS-10 launch, the launcher failed. As a result of the incident, the capsule had to make an emergency landing 25 km from the Kazakh city of Dscheskasgan and return to earth at a steeper angle than usual. Search and rescue teams found the two space travelers unharmed by the landing capsule.

000

literature

  • Matthias founder, Horst Hoffmann, Gerhard Kowalski: SOS in space. Schwarzkopf and Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89602-339-X .
  • Karcev Khazanovskij: Why were the experts wrong? 3rd edition, Verlag Technik, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-341-00545-5 .
  • David J. Shayler: Disasters and accidents in manned spaceflight. Springer, London 2000, ISBN 1-85233-225-5 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. WIRED Staff: March 19, 1981: Shuttle's First Fatalities . In: Wired . March 19, 2009, ISSN  1059-1028 ( wired.com [accessed July 7, 2020]).