Cosmos 133

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Mission dates
Mission: Cosmos 133
COSPAR-ID : 1966-107A
Spacecraft: Soyuz 7K-OK (A) ( GRAU index  11F615)
serial number 2
Dimensions: 6450 kg
Launcher: Soyuz (GRAY index 11A511)
Crew: unmanned
Begin: November 28, 1966, 11:02 UT
Starting place: Baikonur 31/6
Landing: November 30, 1966, 10:21 UT
Landing place: blown up over China
Flight duration: 1 d, 23 h, 19 m
Rotation time : 88.4 min
Orbit inclination : 51.82 °
Apogee : 223 km
Perigee : 171 km
◄ Before / After ►
Vozhod 2
(manned) 		Kosmos 140
(unmanned)
Next manned mission:
Soyuz 1

Kosmos 133 was the code name for the first unmanned test flight of the Soviet Soyuz spaceship from November 28 to 30, 1966.

preparation

The Soviet design office OKB-1, headed by Sergei Koroljow , had developed a multi-seat, coupling-capable spaceship called Soyuz for the Soviet lunar program .

In the summer and autumn of 1966, the development came to an end, but there were still a few problems to be solved. Among other things, the parachutes were not yet working reliably. When the reserve parachutes were tested on November 3, 1966, they failed and the dummy spaceship shattered on the ground.

The first two Soyuz copies differed in their coupling adapters. The spaceship with the serial number 1 (s / n 1) was of the type 7K-OK (P) and had a passive adapter, s / n 2 was of the type 7K-OK (A) and had the active counterpart.

A double start every 24 hours was planned. The active spaceship should take off first and later rendezvous and pairing with the passive one in orbit . If the distance between the two spacecraft was less than 20 km after they were launched into orbit, the rendezvous could be initiated immediately. At a greater distance, 24 hours would have to be used for course corrections.

Both spaceships were supposed to land on the territory of the Soviet Union after a four-day flight and be rescued by rescue teams, as was the case with manned missions.

The next double launch would perform this maneuver in December 1966 or January 1967 with two manned spacecraft.

On November 26, 1966, the two Soyuz rockets were rolled to two different launch pads on the Baikonur launch site .

Flight history

The first spacecraft with serial number 2 took off on November 28, 1966 at 11:00:00 UT from launch pad 31 in Baikonur and was designated Kosmos 133. In the event of a false start, it would have been without a number. The entry into orbit took place without any problems.

A few hours later, for some unexplained reason, Kosmos 133 ignited its attitude control thrusters and consumed almost all of the fuel that was forecast for the rendezvous within 15 minutes. The spaceship was now rotating at about 2 revolutions per minute. Under these circumstances, the planned mission was no longer feasible and the launch of the second spaceship was canceled.

The next day, flight control tried to stop the rotation by igniting other nozzles, correctly orienting the spaceship and performing the brake ignition for a return to Earth. However, this attempt was stopped when it was not clear whether the spaceship had received the radio signals correctly. Later a compulsory break had to be taken because the flight path no longer led over the Soviet Union. It was not clear whether the decreasing orbit height led to cosmos 133 burning up in the earth's atmosphere, which is why several commands were given to steer to a higher orbit.

The next morning the effects of these commands could be read out by telemetry . In all three cases, the engines had fired, but the spaceship started to vibrate, which is why the engines were automatically switched off.

Finally, the brake ignition could be triggered by radio, the landing was expected at 11:32 UT on November 30, 1966. However, the engine had switched off again prematurely, so that Kosmos 133 was on earth course, but not on the predicted orbit. In the event that the spaceship could go down outside the Soviet Union, an automatic self-destruct mechanism was built in. Air traffic control assumed that Kosmos 133 exploded at 10:21 UT after it crossed Orsk , but before it could fall in China . A search for rubble over several days was unsuccessful.

The investigation

A commission of inquiry presented its report on December 9th. The failure was not due to development or construction errors, rather the inadequate tests carried out under time pressure meant that errors during assembly remained undetected. Since the risk of contamination of the solar surfaces by the exhaust gases from the attitude control engines had been discovered during the test before the start, Konstantin Feoktistow , who was significantly involved in the construction, ordered the rotation of all attitude control blocks by 180 ° and the polarity reversal of the control lines involved in those already being tested on the ground Spaceships s / n 1 and s / n 2. Although the orientation of the engines was changed, the long chain of permits and releases was nevertheless wired with incorrect polarity under the time pressure of the imminent take-offs. Since the two spaceships were already on the cosmodrome, these modifications that were implemented at short notice were no longer adequately tested.

The head of the Soviet space program, Vasily Mishin , and the chairman of the State Commission, Kerim Kerimov , agreed that the mission would have been successful with a cosmonaut on board. A cosmonaut in the spaceship would certainly have noticed the inverse execution of control commands and switched off the automatic system, as was possible for the first time with the Soyuz spaceships, but only after the cosmonauts and Nikolai Kamanin insisted . After consultation with the flight control, corrected manual attitude control commands would very likely have made successful maneuvering possible.

The start of the second Soyuz was now scheduled for the period between December 15 and 18, the first manned flight of a Soyuz was to follow on January 19, 1967.

The loss of the spaceship made it clear that there were no plans for the event that a Soviet spaceship outside the Soviet Union had to be salvaged.

The disaster at the next Soyuz launch

On December 12, 1966, the Soyuz rocket was rolled to launch pad 31 on spaceship No. 1. The launch was scheduled for December 14 at 4:00 p.m. local time.

However, when the engines were fired, they did not operate at full power, the missile remained on the platform. It was later found that a faulty oxygen valve was preventing all engines from working properly. As a result, the rocket did not develop enough thrust and remained unsecured on the ramp.

After half an hour of waiting, the staff set about securing and defueling the rocket. Suddenly the rescue tower ignited and pulled the Soyuz spaceship about 600 meters into the air. The spaceship landed about 300 meters from the launch pad.

The rocket was set on fire when the rescue tower was ignited. The staff got to safety, sometimes the technicians moved as far as possible from the launch tower, sometimes they crouched behind a concrete wall. However, when the fire exploded the first stage rocket after about two minutes, the concrete wall failed to provide protection and people there were killed or injured.

The launch facility was unusable for months, and even buildings one kilometer away were damaged.

The disaster had two different causes. The faulty oxygen valve in itself would only have caused a start delay of a few days. Only the unintentional ignition of the rescue tower had led to the loss of life, rocket and launch equipment. It turned out that a logical mistake had been made in the design of the rescue tower: instead of the planned three ways to ignite the solid rocket, there were actually four. This fourth possibility was triggered by the fact that the rocket stood motionless on the ramp for a long time without an external power supply (is interpreted after the start signal without changed signals of the inertial system as the start of the start of the vertical ascent), but the earth's rotation after about half an hour in Position control system caused a deviation from the original orientation at the start time of more than 8 °, which was considered a termination criterion. Thus, a poorly designed safety device had caused greater damage than if that device had not been available.

Impact on the Soyuz Program

Soviet space travel suffered serious setbacks on several levels. The first two copies of the new Soyuz spaceship had been lost. There was a possibility that the rocket and spaceship design contained other flaws. The spaceship could not be brought under control in orbit. The recovery of a spaceship that would have to land outside the Soviet Union had not yet been satisfactorily regulated.

Nevertheless, the goal remained to carry out a manned orbit around the moon until November 7, 1967, the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution . This also required four unmanned launches of the 7K-L1 variant of the Soyuz spaceship, which had not yet been tested, as had the new special version of the Proton UR-500K launcher.

The next plan envisaged an unmanned single launch of a Soyuz spacecraft on January 15, 1967, either with serial number 3 or number 5. A manned double flight was to follow soon after, but in March 1967 at the earliest.

Comparison with the US space program

In the USA, the Gemini program ended on November 15, 1966 with the landing of Gemini 12 . NASA had carried out ten manned space flights since March 1965 and always had new first and best performances to report. A long-term flight with Gemini 7 had screwed the record to just under 14 days. The Gemini spaceships could be precisely maneuvered at Rendezvous and couplings in space were no longer a problem. After five space exits , the difficulties in this area had also been overcome. The new Apollo spacecraft had already completed three unmanned flights; the first manned launch was planned for spring 1967.

The Soviet Union, on the other hand, had not carried out a manned space flight since March 1965, the only space exit ( Woschod 2 ) had only lasted a few minutes and was problematic even without special requirements. The new Soyuz spaceship, which was supposed to be on par with the American Apollo, had only had one unmanned flight behind it, which resulted in the loss of the spaceship. In addition, the selection and training of the cosmonauts was severely affected by internal rivalries.

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