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Apart From Going Ballisitc, Soyuz Was Per Normal
From what I've read, the only thing out of the ordinary about the Soyuz reentry was the ballistic trajectory. The craft is deliberately built -- like the Apollo command module -- with an offset center of gravity, which allows it to move through the atmosphere at an angle of attack that provides a bit of lift. Controlling this lift is what allows the Soyuz to land inside the target zone in Kazakhstan. (Just as Apollo craft landed in more or less in the right part of the ocean). It looks like a software glitch put the Soyuz in the wrong alignment at the beginning of reentry, negating the lift factor. Without the lift, they came in faster than normal on a trajectory that put them about 300 kilometers west of the target. The 8-9 g's they pulled -- producing all that tongue in the back of the throat business -- is normal on a ballistic entry and they would have expected it. Lives were not in danger, at least not any more than they are on in reentry. I believe the Amercian Mercury capsules all used a ballistic reentry trajectory.
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