In a recent photo essay for the New Yorker magazine, author Keith Gessen and photographer Andrew McConnell share what life is like for the residents around the launch facility and where Soyuz capsules land in Kazakhstan.
Read the article for a brief history of the Baikonur spaceport and observations from the photographer’s fifteen visits to observe Soyuz landings and the extreme separation between the local farmers and the facilities built up around Baikonur. A local ecologist even compares the family farmers toiling around the busy spaceport to a scene our readers may be familiar with on Tatooine.
We assumed Soyuz capsules splashdown somewhere near Russia just like the iconic images of Apollo capsules. While they can land in water, their 13 target landing sites are all on land in the sparsely inhabited Kazakhstan steppe (flat grasslands). According to russianspaceweb.com, the descent is slowed with a single large parachute. When the capsule is about one meter from the ground, solid rocket thrusters fire, “reducing the descent speed of the capsule to between 0 and 3 meters per second.” We learned that the rockets’ force, not the crumple zone on the capsule, causes so much stress that each is only suitable for a single use.
While there is fascinating engineering in the Soyuz landing, from the landing rockets mentioned above to parachute wires acting as antennae for transponders to the multiple automated and backup systems, there is some hacking by the local farmers as well. The cast-off parts of the single-use capsules become scrap metal for use around the farms, leading to haunting images that seem to come from a dystopian future where space flights are as common as commercial air travel but still out of reach for many.
It’s a shame that you can’t look at the photo essay because the New Yorker requires a subscription to access the article. Booo, Hissss
Yeah I can’t imagine ever wanting to pay those guys
It’s a shame you don’t know how to right click and “open in incognito window”
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/out-of-the-sky
is archived to read for free https://archive.is/5rxBa
pretty much any webpage can be or already is archived and accessible at https://archive.is/
The Swiss watch manufacturer Werenbach uses pieces of Soyuz capsules and rockets to make dials for their wristwatches. I know this because I own one of these watches.
Used to use … Werenbach shut down operations on November 23, 2023.
A Soyuz squished my yak!
:)
“…just after I shaved it!”
The only reason Russia lands its spacecraft in Kazakhstan is because Putin kas not decided to invade Kazakhstan – yet.
Man, that trash littered steppe looks like a scene out of Borderlands, or any street in modern day drug-riddled San Francisco. Sad indeed.
Russia has launched and landed there for a lot longer than Putler has been around. But Kazakhstan was the site of (yet another) color revolution in 2022, so you can be sure that the usual suspects are putting it on the same old primrose path to war… Might take a decade or two, who knows
I kind of want to go see the rocket junkyard and check out the balaclava-clad farmers with their capsule wheelbarrows… I wonder if they are friendly
a maximally politicized article about how everything was bad in the USSR, about disasters, about how the USSR and Russia did not help anyone, etc. I lived about 20 years in Baikonur and I can say that the article contains only the worst.
“We learned that the rockets’ force, not the crumple zone on the capsule, causes so much stress that each is only suitable for a single use.” – This is not true, the Soyuz spacecraft is reusable
The Soyuz Orbital Module and service module (ISM) are not recoverable, and burn up in the atmosphere during the EDL sequence. The Descent Module lands, but is not refurbished or reused.
True, the CCCP did in fact “help” estonia, latvia, lithuania, most generously, AFTER they invaded and occupied these countries. To this date, orphan sources still pop up in those locales, courtesy of the peace loving soviet army. If CCCP had been the workers paradise it claimed to be, one would assume the Kazakhstani would have welcomed the russians back with open arms, and feasable prices.
Great work Andy, as always and you’re colleague Keith, chat soon 👍
There seems to be quite some confusion in the article.
Soyuz the capsule is landed and recovered from Kazakhstan by Roskomsos, it is not left there.
Soyuz the launch vehicle drops some of its stages (Bloks B/V/G/D of the first stage, and Blok A of the second stage) which also impact Kazakhstan, and THESE are the parts that are not recovered by Roskosmos and are scrapped or reused by the locals.