Pyotr Ivanovich Kolodin

Pyotr Kolodin
Country:	Soviet Union
selected on	January 8, 1963
Calls:	0 space flights
retired on	April 20, 1983

Pyotr Ivanovich Kolodin ( Russian Пётр Иванович Колодин ; born September 23, 1930 in Novowasiljewka , Pryasovsk district , Zaporizhia Oblast , Ukrainian SSR , Soviet Union ) is a former Soviet cosmonaut . He was involved in the preparation for several historical space missions, but was not used himself.

Start of career

Pyotr Kolodin was born the third of nine children to a farming family. He graduated from a military artillery school in 1952 and the Military Academy of Engineering and Radio Technology in Kharkov in 1959 . After that he served as an officer in the Soviet missile forces.

Cosmonaut activity

Selection and basic training

In 1962, Kolodin got the opportunity to become a cosmonaut. After the first group of cosmonauts in the Soviet Union in spring 1960 and an all-women group in spring 1962, this was only the third cosmonaut selection.

As with the first group, candidates were selected from among the ranks of the Soviet armed forces, but this time the selection was not limited to pilots alone. Thus, on January 8, 1963, Kolodin became one of 15 cosmonaut candidates, four of whom were rocket troop engineers like him. Like most aspirants, Kolodin passed his final exam on January 21, 1965.

Space exit with Vozhod 2

As of February 1964, Kolodin were in training for the new Soyuz spacecraft. He was in a training group with the Vostok veteran Pavel Popowitsch , with Viktor Gorbatko (like Popowitsch also from the first group) and with Valentina Ponomarjowa .

But later he was appointed to the support team of Woschod 2 . On this flight, Alexei Leonov made the first space exit in March 1965 .

Transition in space with Soyuz 5

Kolodin was one of the eight cosmonauts that Nikolai Kamanin , the head of cosmonaut training, had chosen as the crew for the first Soyuz flights. However, there were rivalries between the military cosmonauts and the engineers of the ZKBEM development office , who also took up space on board the spaceships.

In addition, there were several space projects (orbital missions, lunar orbit, moon landing and space station), so that the team assignments were constantly changing. In 1965 and 1966, Kolodin found himself in various training groups one after the other. Among other things, he should prepare for a lunar orbit and a moon landing. However, the Soviet lunar program was unsuccessful.

In January 1967 Kolodin was assigned to the Soyuz 5 support team along with Anatoly Kuklin and Vladislav Volkov . During this flight, which took place in January 1969, the first transfer of space travelers from one spacecraft to another took place. At this point in time, NASA had just made the first flight to the moon with Apollo 8 and wanted to test the lunar module in the next Apollo flight .

Triple flight with Soyuz 7

The next project was the flight of Soyuz 6 , Soyuz 7 and Soyuz 8 , in which, for the first time, three spaceships and seven cosmonauts should be in space at the same time. From February 1969 Kolodin was in training for this and was nominated as a substitute for Soyuz 7 in April. The flight took place in October 1969, but the planned coupling failed.

Long-term mission to Salyut 1

After the race to the moon was lost, Soviet space travel focused on space stations in orbit. Kolodin was briefly under discussion as a crew for a preparatory long-term flight with Soyuz 9 .

There were two competing designs for the space station: the Almaz station from the ZKBM design office (formerly OKB-52) and the DOS station from the ZKBEM (formerly OKB-1). Ultimately, the DOS was available earlier. The teams from Soyuz 10 , Soyuz 11 and, if possible, from Soyuz 12 had planned several stays of several weeks .

Kolodin was already in training for this from January 1970. Together with Alexei Leonov and Valery Kubasov, he formed the substitute team for Soyuz 10 and the main team for Soyuz 11.

The DOS space station launched on April 19, 1971 under the name Salyut 1 , and the Soyuz 10 spacecraft three days later. However, the coupling maneuver failed. Commander Shatalov and his crew had to turn back.

A second attempt was soon to be made with Soyuz 11, and Leonow, Kubassow and Kolodin saw themselves as the first space station crew to go down in space history. The launch was scheduled for June 6, 1971. However, during a routine examination on June 3, doctors diagnosed suspected tuberculosis in Kubasov. According to the rules, the entire crew had to be changed, and so the substitute team Georgi Dobrowolski , Viktor Pazajew and Wladislaw Volkov started . Kolodin and Leonov were assigned to the next flight, with Kubassov being replaced by Nikolai Rukawischnikow .

The Soyuz 11 crew formed the first crew of a space station and set a new long-term record with a flight duration of 23 days. However, on the June 29 landing, a pressure equalization valve opened prematurely, and all three cosmonauts were killed. The suspicion of tuberculosis had saved Leonov, Kubasov and Kolodin's lives, but had cost the lives of three other cosmonauts. Further Soyuz flights have been suspended for the time being. In 1972 and 1973 there was a series of false starts of the Salyut space stations, so that Kolodin was not used.

Short term mission to Salyut 6

From September 1975 Kolodin was again in training for a manned mission. The new station Salyut 6 was designed for stays in space of several months. But since this exceeded the maximum operating time of a Soyuz spaceship, short-term crews were supposed to replace the spaceship at the station.

The first long-term stay in Salyut 6 was to take place in October 1977 by Vladimir Kowaljonok and Valeri Ryumin with Soyuz 25 . This was the first space flight for both Kovaljonok and Ryumin. The spacecraft swaps were to be carried out by Vladimir Dzhanibekov and Kolodin, who were to bring Soyuz 26 to the space station and return with Soyuz 25. This would have been the first spacecraft swap in space history.

The coupling attempt by Soyuz 25 failed, however, and Kovaljonok and Ryumin had to return to Earth without having entered the space station. This was then done in December 1977 by the Soyuz 26 crew .

After the failure of Soyuz 25, flight control had introduced the rule that at least one of the two cosmonauts had to have space experience in a spacecraft crew. But since both Dschanibekow and Kolodin were space newbies, they could not carry out the planned spacecraft exchange together. Instead of Kolodin, his substitute Oleg Makarow was nominated for the Soyuz 27 flight , which took place in January 1978.

additional

Further short-term missions to Salyut 6 took place as part of the Interkosmos program, in which pilots from friendly countries came on a space flight. Since Kolodin had no space experience, he was out of the question as the commander of such a mission. After several years without being assigned to a flight, he officially resigned from the cosmonaut corps on April 20, 1983 and took on tasks in flight control. Kolodin is now retired.

Private

Kolodin is married and has one child.

Web links

• Pyotr Ivanovich Kolodin in the Encyclopedia Astronautica (English)
• Kolodin at astronaut.ru (Russian)
• Short biography at Spacefacts.de