Lot 307
Soyuz "Soft Landing" Retro Rocket (8x7") This fairly heavy, used retrorocket is a fascinating piece of Russian technology. The Soyuz descent module descends through the atmosphere shielded by a heatshield until the rate of descent has slowed sufficiently to deploy parachutes to slow the descent capsule even further. At a height of about 2 meters (about 7 feet) from the earth's surface, the heatshield is released, exposing four retrorockets which fire just prior to earth impact, thus providing a zero-velocity, soft landing for the module - and hopefully a safe landing for the cosmonauts contained in the capsule.
While used on all of the Soyuz descent capsules, these retrorocket engines are almost never available to collectors. Since American space flights land in water, or, in the case of the Space Shuttle, use a different landing concept, similar engines are non-existent and can only come from Russian flights. A similar engine realized about $11,000 in a recent auction. This retrorocket will fill an important position in any space collection.
Estimated Value $7,500 - 10,000.
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