List of space accidents
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. |
1 |
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. |
3 |
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. | 1 |
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. | 1 |
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) . | 0 |
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. | 3 |
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 . | 9 |
April 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. | 0 |
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. | 48 |
March 19, 1981 | unmanned | After the successful countdown exercise on the first space shuttle, six engineers inhaled pure nitrogen. Two of the men died. | 2 |
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. | 0 |
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. |
7th |
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. | 1 |
February 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 ). |
7th |
August 22, 2003 | unmanned |
A Brazilian launcher VLS-1 exploded at launch preparations and killed 21 technicians. |
21st |
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. | 1 |
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. |
0 |
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
- Cold war and disasters
- Information on the STS-51L / Challenger Accident (English)
- List of fatal accidents of manned spaceflight (English)
- Summary of the accidents of the manned space programs (1963–1969) - NASA report (PDF) (English; 7.52 MB)
- Summary of the accidents of the manned space programs (1970–1971) - NASA report (PDF) (English; 4.92 MB)