Georgi Mikhailovich Grechko

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Georgi Grechko
Georgi Grechko
Georgi Grechko in 2011
Country: USSR
selected on May 27, 1968
Calls: 3 space flights
Start of the
first space flight: 		January 10, 1975
Landing of the
last space flight: 		September 26, 1985
Time in space: 134d 20h 33min
EVA inserts: 1
EVA total duration: 1h 28min
retired on March 1, 1992
Space flights

Georgi Mikhailovich Grechko ( Russian Георгий Михайлович Гречко ; born May 25, 1931 in Leningrad , Russian SFSR ; † April 8, 2017 in Moscow ) was a Soviet cosmonaut .

Life

Start of career

In the turmoil of World War II , Grechko spent his entire childhood in Ukraine and did not return to Leningrad until 1944. From 1949 he attended the Institute for Mechanics in his hometown, which he graduated with honors six years later. He later received two more degrees: a master's degree in engineering in 1967 and a doctorate in physics and mathematics in 1984 .

In 1954, Grechko began to work as a mechanic in Sergei Korolev's design office ( OKB-1 ) . From the following year he worked as an engineer and calculated the trajectories of Sputnik 1 and other satellites and space probes. He was also involved in the Luna program , especially the lunar probes Luna 9 to 13. He was also given the management of his own OKB group.

Selection to the cosmonaut

In mid-May 1964, Korolev proposed 14 engineers who had the skills to become cosmonauts. This resulted in six candidates who were sent to the intensive medical tests. In May 1966, three men were selected ( Vladislav Volkov , Valeri Kubasov and Grechko) who finally began basic training in early September 1966 in the “Star City” near Moscow .

From January 1967, Grechko formed a group with nine other cosmonauts (including Yuri Gagarin ) who trained for a flight to the moon . However, it was withdrawn in April 1969 and prepared from then on for use with Soyuz spaceships . After he had belonged to the second replacement crew of Soyuz 6 and Soyuz 7 as a flight engineer , he was appointed to the replacement crew of Soyuz 9 together with Anatoly Filipchenko , the commander of Soyuz 7 .

One year after the Soyuz 9 flight, in June 1971, Grechko and Filipchenko trained for a coupling flight of two Soyuz spacecraft in orbit. Then Grechko looked after the cosmonauts who were supposed to fly to the Soviet space station Salyut until he and Alexei Gubarew belonged to the Soyuz 12 substitute team .

Soyuz 17, the first flight

Grechko continued to train with Gubarev until both were designated as crews for the Soyuz 17 flight . In mid-January 1975 both started towards Salyut 4 . After docking, they lived and worked aboard the station for almost a month. Above all, astronomical and earth-observing experiments were part of the scope of research. This first flight to this space station came to an end after 29 days, which was a new long-term Soviet record. In contrast, the Americans had spent almost three months in a space station with Skylab 4 .

Soyuz 26, the second flight

After his successful debut, Grechko prepared for further flights to a space station. After the unsuccessful attempt to couple Soyuz 25 to Salyut 6 in October 1977 , the Grechko with its new commander Yuri Romanenko should succeed two months later on the next flight.

Soyuz 26 took off on December 10, 1977. 22 hours later, the cosmonauts docked at the stern of Salyut 6. A week and a half later, the astronauts were supposed to find out why their colleagues had not been able to moor at the station two months earlier. Both took a short exit , but could not see any damage to the front docking port.

Exactly one month after leaving, Soyuz 27 reached the space station. Vladimir Dschanibekow and Oleg Makarov came as a visit and brought a fresh Soyuz spaceship with them. After five days, the two guests returned on the Soyuz 26 spacecraft. Grechko and Romanenko stayed on board until the end of March 1978. When they landed back on Earth, they had set a new long-term record at 96 days. For the total time in space, Grechko was the sole record holder of 125 days in space due to his previous flight.

Originally, Grechko was intended as a substitute commander of Soyuz 31 . However, he was withdrawn from the Interkosmos flight with the German Sigmund Jähn because he was very familiar with the Salyut station coupling.

After Soyuz 26, Grechko worked as a liaison officer in ground control and from autumn 1983 trained as a flight engineer in the replacement crew of Soyuz T-11 , with commander Anatoli Berezovoi and the Indian research cosmonaut Ravish Malhotra .

Soyuz T-14, the third flight

The three-year-old Salyut 7 space station had been struggling with significant energy problems since the spring of 1985. In June, the Soyuz T-13 was sent into orbit as a “repair party”. The cosmonaut duo Vladimir Dschanibekow and Viktor Savinych should make the station work again. Three months later, Grechko was sent to Salyut 7 with the Soyuz T-14 together with commander Vladimir Wasjutin and research cosmonaut Alexander Volkov . Grechko's task was simply to assess the work of Dschanibekow and Savinych at the station from the engineer's point of view and to certify the further airworthiness of Salyut 7. After only a week, he and Janibekov, who had been on board for 112 days, returned to Earth.

After space travel

Grechko left the cosmonaut squad in 1986 and took a position at the Soviet Academy of Sciences in Moscow. He worked as a geophysicist at the Institute for Atmospheric Physics, where he was significantly involved in the development of some experiments for the Mir space station .

In March 1992, Grechko left the academy and took over the presidency of the Federation for Peace and Reconciliation for two years. It is a non-governmental organization based in Moscow that works on peacekeeping. He has been retired since leaving.

Georgi Grechko was married three times and had two grown sons from his first marriage.

Awards

See also

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Grechko, Georgi Michailowitsch
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Гречко, Георгий Михайлович (Russian)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION soviet cosmonaut
DATE OF BIRTH May 25, 1931
PLACE OF BIRTH Leningrad , Russian SFSR , Soviet Union
DATE OF DEATH April 8, 2017
Place of death Moscow , Russia