MOSCOW — The crew of the Soyuz space capsule that landed 260 miles off target in Kazakhstan was in serious danger during the descent, a Russian news agency reported Tuesday.
Interfax quoted an unidentified Russian space official as saying the capsule entered Earth’s atmosphere Saturday with the hatch first instead of its heat shield leading the way. As a result, the hatch sustained significant damage.
The official said a valve that equalizes pressure within the TMA-11 capsule with the outside also was damaged. In addition, the capsule’s antenna burned up, meaning the crew couldn’t communicate properly with Russian Mission Control, the official said.
The Soyuz crew included American astronaut Peggy Whitson.
“The fact that the entire crew ended up whole and undamaged is a great success. Everything could have turned out much worse,” said the space official, described by Interfax as being involved in the investigation of the improper landing. “You could say the situation was on a razor’s edge.”
Alexander Vorobyov, a spokesman for the Russian Federal Space Agency, confirmed the descent had problems but said it was common for a Soyuz hatch and antenna to have heat damage during re-entry into the atmosphere.
He said investigators looking into the landing classified it as a “3” on a 5-point scale of seriousness, with a “5” being a critical situation. Officials were still studying what went wrong.
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