Ejection Seat in the „Snowstorm” - The Soviet Space Shuttle’s Personnel Emergency System

Abstract

The study does not deal with the natural phenomena of the wintertime season, but summarizes the information on the personnel emergency system of the Soviet Space Shuttle known as „Snowstorm”. The system consists of an ejection seat and one personnel emergency parachute. My study presents the story of the Soviet Space Shuttle-program shortly, the final technical results of it, and highlights the fact of the need for the secure ejection of the Space Shuttle in emergency situation for cosmonauts. The type K-36D ejection seat and the type PSU-36 personnel emergency parachute had been already available for the Soviet military aviation at that time, this possibility gives a chance to make a good use of them in other areas such as „space” as well. The special deployment of these equipment has not been introduced in real life, especially for financial issues. However this fact does not reduce the merits of engineers’ collective leaded by Gai I. Severin, therefore I dedicate this study for their honour.