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[i]...Thomas Stafford, a former astronaut, said the incident took place when the main parachute of the Soyuz spacecraft deployed about eight kilometers above the landing site in Kazakhstan. A buckle that is part of the parachute system struck the capsule. "The buckle struck a welding seam and, as a result, there was a depressurizing event that resulted in some air escaping the capsule," he said. ...The partial loss of pressure did not put the crew in jeopardy, Stafford said. A valve normally opens once the capsule descends to an altitude of five kilometers to allow outside air into the capsule. The crewmembers were also wearing pressure suits, as is standard procedure on Soyuz landings. "Since the crew was suited, the depressurization presented no issue for the crew," Stafford said, adding that they knew about the issue from sensors in the spacecraft. At a June meeting of Stafford's committee with its Russian equivalent, Stafford said that Russian officials believed that the way the parachute was folded inside the Soyuz may have caused the buckle to hit the capsule during deployment, with the angle of the spacecraft during reentry also possibly playing a role. Stafford said there was no record of a similar event taking place in previous Soyuz landings. "Work has been done to review the anomaly, and mitigation steps were implemented to ensure it will not happen in the future," he said.[/i]
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