Developing a Finite Element Soyuz Seat Environment and Investigating Occupant Injury Metrics for Accelerative Loading Across Spaceflight Vehicle Designs

Landings in the Soyuz vehicle have generated more injuries than models have predicted, and the reason for this remains unknown. Presently, 3 new capsule-type spacecraft—the Orion, the SpaceX Dragon2, and the Boeing CST-100—are in various stages of development. To better understand the injury risk to Soyuz crewmembers, and to mitigate risk of future injuries onboard the new vehicles, we conducted a finite element (FE) modeling effort. At the outset of this study, previously developed FE models were available for the seats in the 3 new vehicles, whereas the Soyuz environment had not been modeled in an extensible manner. Thus, a model of the Soyuz seat was necessary to facilitate comparisons of all seat types.