Soyuz-MS first flight (ISS Expedition 48)

[1greywind]

Today three members of the Expedition 48 crew successfully reached Earth orbit and are on the 2 day journey to ISS. This launch is somewhat special, because it features new version of Soyuz spacecraft. I want to share some videos related to launch and new Soyuz:

Launch video (in English):

Soyuz-MS features highlight (from popularmechanics.com article ):

 

 

Video about Soyuz-MS spacecraft (in Russian, but you can try English subtitles):

 

360 degree video from launch pad (watch the box!):

 

[hugix]

Lol @ the cart hitting the camera and falling over. 

[lajoswinkler]

Am I the only one annoyed by the launch stream where you have physical units written in Cyrillic script? It's m/s, not м/с and it's km, not км. Physical units are not a subject of language changes. They're universal, just like periodic table symbols. If you change the way you write them, it loses its meaning.

 

NASA does the same thing when they (rarely) use metric system. "kph" - that thing does not exist. It's km/h (or km⋅h^-1) or nothing.

[Ultimate Steve]

Yeah. The cart

I LOVE 360 videos.

[Ten Key]

25 minutes ago, lajoswinkler said:

Physical units are not a subject of language changes. They're universal, just like periodic table symbols. If you change the way you write them, it loses its meaning.

[YNM]

6 hours ago, lajoswinkler said:

Am I the only one annoyed by the launch stream where you have physical units written in Cyrillic script? It's m/s, not м/с and it's km, not км. Physical units are not a subject of language changes. They're universal, just like periodic table symbols. If you change the way you write them, it loses its meaning.

Yes it does, most if not all the time. Case in point is here - we use km/j ("jam" instead of hour) and m/det ("detik" instead of seconds. Fair amount of time passes as people in class try to think about the use of "sekon" to justify the use of m/s which is sort of a localized unofficial version of second). Another case in point are in that book about meteors written fully in cyrilic - all the units are in cyrilic as well.

All is fine as long as people understands it, IMHO.

Edited July 8, 2016 by YNM

[lajoswinkler]

Just because people make errors (and you are making them) doesn't mean it's not an error. Physical units and quantities are defined by the International System of Units. That's it. It's the rule (and, in legal terms as far as countries are concerned, a law) and there can be no exceptions. Quantities are defined (and written in italic), units are defined.

 

Same goes for math equations.

 

Regarding that periodic table, it's an interesting curiosity, that's it. Just like there are different weird and unusual layouts of the table itself, and there are many of them, more or less utilitary and/or aesthetically pleasing.

Chemical symboly and equations are written in Latin script. No exceptions, period. The only thing subjectible to language differences are the names of the elements.

Edited July 8, 2016 by lajoswinkler

[1greywind]

20 hours ago, lajoswinkler said:

Am I the only one annoyed by the launch stream where you have physical units written in Cyrillic script? It's m/s, not м/с and it's km, not км. Physical units are not a subject of language changes. They're universal, just like periodic table symbols. If you change the way you write them, it loses its meaning.

 

NASA does the same thing when they (rarely) use metric system. "kph" - that thing does not exist. It's km/h (or km⋅h^-1) or nothing.

I'm shocked by your Ethnocentrism. SI was French invention and Russian is one of official languages of United Nations. 

SI standard is managed by International Standard Organization. You can visit iso.com and find that site has English, French and Russian versions, as all published standards do. If you are so worrying about SI units names, you can search Russian version of ISO 1, look for sub standard ISO 1151-1:1988 (Flight dynamics -- Concepts, quantities and symbols -- Part 1: Aircraft motion relative to the air) and find out that м/c has same rights and meaning that m/s does.

 

 

Edited July 8, 2016 by 1greywind
spelling

[kerbiloid]

Unit signs were used by many people long before the mechanical typewriters, and for most of them were not associated with equations or so. So, they were written with Cyrillic letters.

Until the computer era most of typewriters had only Cyrillic letters, as for most of users there was no much applications for Latin ones. Mathematical and chemistry equations were in any case too complicated for a typewriter and were being written manually.
Of course, unit signs were still being typed in Cyrillic. As when you have a cyrillic typewriter you would type this in Cyrillic rather than handscripting in Latin.

As millions of books and billions of labels use such notation, it would be uncommon to write units in English, because most of Russian speakers read in Russian, while English speakers anyway read a translation.

Phonetically it sounds not obvious too.
"h" as "hour" = "ч" [tch] (from "tchas")
"d" as "day" = "сут" (from "sutki")
"in" as "inch" = ~"deuym"

Btw a quote sign as "inch" and an apostrophe as "foot" is also not so clear when you don't use British units.
The same for "lb" (< "libr(um? a?)") for "pound". Which in Russian is "foont".

So, the units are localized, while the mathematical notation is international.

Edited July 8, 2016 by kerbiloid

[lajoswinkler]

What you say goes against my whole education and every book I've ever read, whether it was on chemistry or physics. I've also had the opportunity to browse through Russian Cyrillic written books and Systeme international d'unites has always been respected whether it was during the USSR or after the breakup. Your one ISO made for flight rules against literally everything in chemistry and physics I've ever learned or heard. Occam's razor?

 

That is not ethnocentrism, for god's sake. It's a rule to make sure information is easily read by anyone. That's why, on reagent bottles, no matter where the reagent was produced, the label has the formula and impurities in Latin script.

[kunok]

Can we talk about the improvements of the venerable soyuz instead of the used units?
Why they chose to improve the electricity production instead of making the solar panels smaller? Maybe they are lighter but more efficient in the same size?

[Nibb31]

30 minutes ago, kunok said:

Can we talk about the improvements of the venerable soyuz instead of the used units?
Why they chose to improve the electricity production instead of making the solar panels smaller? Maybe they are lighter but more efficient in the same size?

The updated electronics systems require more power. 

Edited July 8, 2016 by Nibb31

[kunok]

Just now, Nibb31 said:

Maybe the updated docking and satcom systems require more power.

Can be, iIt will explain too the extra battery , but usually in electronics systems, new ones are less energy demanding than old ones.

[Nibb31]

4 minutes ago, kunok said:

Can be, iIt will explain too the extra battery , but usually in electronics systems, new ones are less energy demanding than old ones.

Not necessarily. There are lot more electronics on this Soyuz than on the previous one (sat comm systems, sat nav, docking, etc...). There is also an electrical mechanical assisted docking system that might require more power.

[kunok]

11 minutes ago, Nibb31 said:

Not necessarily. There are lot more electronics on this Soyuz than on the previous one (sat comm systems, sat nav, docking, etc...). There is also an electrical mechanical assisted docking system that might require more power.

Oh, I was thinking that everything was an upgrade to an older system

[asmi]

2 hours ago, lajoswinkler said:

That is not ethnocentrism, for god's sake. It's a rule to make sure information is easily read by anyone. That's why, on reagent bottles, no matter where the reagent was produced, the label has the formula and impurities in Latin script.

What makes you think that Roskosmos had that goal? Remember it's governmental agency funded by Russian taxpayers, so their primary concern is making sure they understand the information. Everybody else is of no concern most of the time. At least the numbers themselves are easy to understand, unlike NASA's reports with miles and pounds instead of normal units...

Edited July 8, 2016 by asmi

[DDE]

On ‎08‎.‎07‎.‎2016 at 2:49 AM, lajoswinkler said:

Am I the only one annoyed by the launch stream where you have physical units written in Cyrillic script? It's m/s, not м/с and it's km, not км. Physical units are not a subject of language changes. They're universal, just like periodic table symbols. If you change the way you write them, it loses its meaning.

 

NASA does the same thing when they (rarely) use metric system. "kph" - that thing does not exist. It's km/h (or km⋅h^-1) or nothing.

It's revenge for all the 'faux Cyrrilic' that gets thrown around.

[lajoswinkler]

On 7/8/2016 at 2:02 PM, asmi said:

What makes you think that Roskosmos had that goal? Remember it's governmental agency funded by Russian taxpayers, so their primary concern is making sure they understand the information. Everybody else is of no concern most of the time. At least the numbers themselves are easy to understand, unlike NASA's reports with miles and pounds instead of normal units...

If I answer that, I'm gonna get an infraction because of "politics", so I won't say anything.

[kunok]

I know I was the one asking for not derailing the thread, but, @lajoswinkler I feel pretty contradictory your defense in the Juno thread that Juno needs to have a scientifically "useless" camera to get more public interest, but the units can't be adapted to the language of the public for the same reason

[lajoswinkler]

54 minutes ago, kunok said:

I know I was the one asking for not derailing the thread, but, @lajoswinkler I feel pretty contradictory your defense in the Juno thread that Juno needs to have a scientifically "useless" camera to get more public interest, but the units can't be adapted to the language of the public for the same reason

The camera is not useless at all. Ask the planetary geologists waiting to see Io after all these years.

 

Adapting units is breaking the rules that exist for a particular reason and that is to spread the information faster and better. There are no downsides to using proper notation.

[YNM]

Regarding the unit symbols, I guess anything is fine as long as those interested understands it. I mean, heck, should we call day(s) "day(s)" in all language ? Even you have "spelled" and "spelt", why can't I have something else.

Back on topic: I fail to notice what's different in the solar panels - is it the deploy mechanism ? Or the angles ? Or what ? Also fails to understand the video (nobody to blame though), so can anyone give me other physical changes of the spacecraft ? Like the past Igla vs the current Kurs ?

[Nibb31]

1 hour ago, YNM said:

Back on topic: I fail to notice what's different in the solar panels - is it the deploy mechanism ? Or the angles ? Or what ?

The efficiency of the photovoltaic cells, which is probably pretty much invisible from the outside.

Quote

Also fails to understand the video (nobody to blame though), so can anyone give me other physical changes of the spacecraft ? Like the past Igla vs the current Kurs ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_MS#Soyuz_MS_Improvements

On the outside, I think the main difference is that it has 3 less antennas for the docking system and it has a square box on the service module for the satellite communications, as shown in the first post in this thread.

Edited July 10, 2016 by Nibb31

[kunok]

1 hour ago, YNM said:

Back on topic: I fail to notice what's different in the solar panels - is it the deploy mechanism ?

If I understand correctly, the solar panels have the same fiscal dimensions, but they are more efficient ant the have more useful surface (more surface are covered by the solar cells itself, instead of a frame or whatever)