The Soyuz re-entry lasts only 35 minutes. The re-entry burn lasts 3 minutes, head down over the South Atlantic. The exterior turns fiery red, and gravity takes its toll. You feel like you’re having an elephant sitting on you (5g). Then for 3 minutes, you feel like you’re in a furnace. The thrusters rotate the spacecraft, you hear the metal melting, and the glass creaking. A sudden bang signals the parachute opening. You can now communicate with the Mi-8 helicopters by radio. Now you just have to remember to keep your tongue in and your head down. A sudden, tremendous bang and it’s all over. You’re in the steppe of Kazakhstan, 200km north of Baikonur. Within 2 hours, you’ll be in the nearest city, and by evening, in Moscow. Usually, everything goes well, but Soyuz TMA-1 experiences a problem on May 4, 2003. The trajectory is incorrect, the deceleration exceeds 8g, and the probe ends up 450 km off course. The helicopters take two hours to find the crew. NASA becomes very concerned and demands a drastic update to procedures. The Russians respond by equipping each Soyuz with a cell phone…
