Salyut 6 EO-1

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mission dates
Mission: Salyut 6 EO-1
Call sign: Таймыр (" Taimyr ")
Crew: 2
Begin: December 10, 1977, 01:18:40  UTC
Starting place: Baikonur 1/5
Space station: Salyut 6
Coupling: December 11, 1977, 03:02:41 UTC
Decoupling: March 16, 1978, 08:00 UTC
Landing: March 16, 1978, 11:18:47 UTC
◄ Before / After ►
Soyuz 24 Salyut 6 EO-2

Salyut 6 EO-1 was the name of the first long-term stay on board the Soviet space station Salyut 6 . The two cosmonauts started with Soyuz 26 and returned to Earth with Soyuz 27 . During this expedition various first achievements were accomplished and records were set.

crew

As usual, the crew consisted of two cosmonauts: a former military aviator as commander and an engineer from NPO Energija as flight engineer.

For this first long-term crew, commander Yuri Romanenko and flight engineer Georgi Gretschko were assigned .

On the previous flight, Grechko was not on the backup team, but on the support team. He had been given preference over Ivanchkov, who was reassigned to the substitute team.

The substitute team consisted of the commander Vladimir Kowaljonok and the flight engineer Alexander Ivanchenkov . Kowaljonok was previously in command of the failed Soyuz 25 flight, which was only two months ago.

The support team consisted of Vladimir Lyakhov , Leonid Popov , Valeri Ryumin and Valentin Lebedev . These cosmonauts were earmarked for later space station missions.

The space station and the first attempt at pairing

In contrast to earlier Salyut space stations, Salyut 6 was provided with two coupling nozzles so that several spaceships could couple at the same time. This was also the case with the US space station Skylab , but there the second coupling system was only intended for a rescue mission in an emergency, while the visit of several spaceships at the same time was actually planned for Salyut 6. In addition, Salyut 6 was the first space station whose attitude control system could be refueled in earth orbit, which greatly increased its service life.

Salyut 6 was launched into Earth orbit on September 29, 1977 at 06:50 UTC. On October 9, 1977, the Soyuz 25 spacecraft took off with Vladimir Kovaljonok and Valeri Ryumin on board. However, the planned coupling at the front coupling socket failed. Since Soyuz 25 had used too much fuel during the maneuvers, Lyachow and Ryumin had to return to Earth without having put the station into operation.

Mission history

Soyuz 26 launch and coupling

Soyuz 26 took off on December 10, 1977 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome with Romanenko and Grechko on board. The following day, the spaceship docked at the rear coupling port of Salyut 6. The front connector was avoided because the reason for the coupling problems of Soyuz 25 was not yet known. Romanenko and Grechko changed trains at Salyut 6 and put them into operation. This was the fifth manned space station in the history of space travel.

Inspection of the coupling piece

One of the most urgent tasks of the cosmonauts was to examine whether the front coupling socket was even functional. If this was not the case, no visiting or supply spaceships could dock, and the station would not be usable for the planned long-term stays.

For this purpose, the first space exit from a Soviet space station and the first Soviet space exit since 1969 (transfer from Soyuz 5 to Soyuz 4 ) were carried out. At the same time, this was the first use of the new Orlan spacesuit .

Romanenko and Grechko found that the coupling mechanism was undamaged and that the problems of the last flight must have been Soyuz 25.

On December 29th, the main engines of the Soyuz spacecraft were fired to raise the orbit of the space station. The cosmonauts could not use the space station's own engines because that was not possible because of the Soyuz at the rear coupling port.

First visit: Soyuz 27

Salyut 6 was the first space station to be briefly flown to by visiting teams in the course of a long-term mission. On the one hand, supplies could be brought to the space station, on the other hand, the Soyuz spaceship, which was only operational in space for a limited time, could be exchanged. In this way, stays were possible that exceeded the service life of the spaceships.

On January 11, 1978 coupled to 14:05:54 UTC Soyuz 27 on the front trimming Salyut 6 at. As a precaution, Romanenko and Grechko had withdrawn into the Soyuz 26 spaceship at the rear coupling socket in the event that Soyuz 27 should collide with the space station.

On board Soyuz 27 were commander Vladimir Dschanibekow and flight engineer Oleg Makarow , who transferred to the space station after docking. They were the first space station visitors in the history of space travel, and their mission was also known as the Salyut 6 EP-1 .

With Soyuz 27, a complex was in Earth orbit for the first time that consisted of three independently launched modules. The total mass was about 33 tons, and one of the tasks of the four cosmonauts was to study the stability of the complex and to measure the resonance frequencies.

After five days, Janibekov and Makarov boarded the Soyuz-26 spacecraft and disconnected from the space station. In doing so, they left the regular crew with a fresh spaceship for their return. Previously, the body-adapted bucket seats had been exchanged between the Soyuz spaceships. This was the first time in the history of space travel that a spaceship had been replaced on a space station. A transfer of space travelers to another spaceship had previously only occurred on Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5 in 1969.

progress

Another first service was the coupling of the unmanned freighter Progress 1 on January 22, 1978 at 10:12:14 UT. It transported 1,300 kg of food and equipment as well as 1,000 kg of fuel to the space station.

The rear coupling nozzle was required for this because the tank connections were located there. In the first few days the supply ship was unloaded and filled with garbage. The tank lines were then carefully checked for leaks before the fuel was pumped over. This was the first refueling of a space station.

On February 6, 1978 at 05:54 UTC, Progress 1 was undocked from the aft docking port. After a brake ignition on February 8th, the freighter plunged into the earth's atmosphere and burned up as planned.

Second visit: Soyuz 28

Another historic first performance came when Soyuz 28, the second visiting team, docked with Salyut 6. In addition to Commander Alexei Gubarew, Vladimír Remek from Czechoslovakia, as part of the Interkosmos program, was also the first astronaut who came neither from the Soviet Union nor from the USA. This made Salyut 6 the first internationally manned space station.

Soyuz 28 docked on March 3, 1978 at 17:09:30 UTC with the rear docking port of the space station, which had been occupied by the Progress freighter a month earlier. The four cosmonauts worked together for a week until Gubarew and Remek left their spacecraft on March 10 and disconnected at 10:23:30. This time the spaceship had not been replaced, as the return of the main crew was imminent.

return

Only a few days later, on March 16, 1978, Romanenko and Grechko boarded the Soyuz spaceship at the front coupling port. At around 08:00 UTC, they disengaged, leaving Salyut 6 unmanned. An overlap of the long-term crews, as would later be the rule at the Mir space station , was not intended.

At 10:31:08 the brake engines of Soyuz 27 were fired, the landing took place at 11:18:47 UTC. Romanenko had contracted a tooth infection in space that could not have been treated on board, so that the return could certainly not have been delayed any longer.

Significance for the Salyut program

With this first expedition on board the Salyut 6, several first achievements and records were achieved:

  • First use of the Orlan spacesuit
  • First supply with unmanned freighter, first refueling of a space station
  • First coupling of two spaceships to a space station
  • First replacement of a spaceship
  • First internationally manned space station
  • Longest flight of a Soyuz spaceship (Soyuz 27) with 64 days, the US American record for Skylab 4 was 84 days.
  • Long-term record for a space stay of 96 days. With that, Romanenko and Grechko clearly surpassed the Skylab 4 record.

With all these achievements, the Soviet Union clearly emerged as the leading nation in near-earth manned space travel. At that time, the United States was in the pause between the Apollo program and the space shuttle , but its development was dragging on and on.

The crew of the second long-term mission, Vladimir Kowaljonok and Alexander Ivanchenkov , on the other hand, got ready to start again on Salyut 6 in a few weeks and to beat a few records.

See also

Web links