Salyut 6 EO-2

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Mission dates
Mission: Salyut 6 EO-2
Call sign: Фотон (" photon ")
Crew: 2
Begin: June 15, 1978, 8:16:45 PM  UTC
Starting place: Baikonur 1/5
Space station: Salyut 6
Coupling: June 16, 1978, 21:58:14 UTC
Decoupling: November 2, 1978, 07:46 UTC
Landing: November 2, 1978, 11:04 UTC
Flight duration: 139d 14h 47m
◄ Before / After ►
Salyut 6 EO-1 Salyut 6 EO-3

Salyut 6 EO-2 was the name of the second long-term stay on board the Soviet space station Salyut 6 . The two cosmonauts started with Soyuz 29 and returned to Earth with Soyuz 31 .

crew

The crew consisted of the commander Vladimir Kovaljonok and the flight engineer Alexander Ivanchenkov . A military pilot had been put together with an engineer from NPO Energija . Kowaljonok and Ivanchenkov were previously the substitute crew for the first long-term crew of Salyut 6 ( Soyuz 26 ) and for Soyuz 27 , a short-term visiting mission. Kovaljonok had only carried out his first space flight eight months earlier, when he and Valery Ryumin had tried unsuccessfully to dock with Salyut 6 with Soyuz 25 .

As a substitute team Wladimir Lyachow were assigned as commander and Valeri Ryumin as flight engineer. This was Lyakhov's first nomination for a space flight, while Ryumin was previously in space with Soyuz 25. The support team consisted of Leonid Popov and Valentin Lebedev .

State of the space station

The space station was abandoned by the first long-term crew Salyut 6 EO-1 on March 16, 1978 after spending about three months on board. Consumables and fuel were delivered on the Freighter Progress 1 at the end of January .

Mission history

Start and pairing

Soyuz 29 took off on June 15, 1978 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome with Kovaljonok and Ivanchenkov on board. The next day they docked with the Salyut 6 space station. They used the front of the two docking ports. During the first week, the two cosmonauts were mainly occupied with bringing the station back into operation after it had been unmanned in space for three months.

First visit: Soyuz 30

The first visiting team coupled with Soyuz 30 on June 28, 1978 at the rear coupling connection. On board were Commander Pjotr ​​Klimuk on his third space flight, as well as the Polish research cosmonaut Mirosław Hermaszewski . Four people worked at Salyut 6 for a week until the Soyuz 30 crew returned to Earth on July 5, 1978.

Progress freighter and disembarkation

On July 9, 1978, at 12:58:59 p.m., the unmanned space ship Progress 2 docked with the rear docking port of the space station. The two cosmonauts unloaded food and equipment, including the crystal experiment.

The pumping of fuel from the Progress freighter into the Salyut's tanks was carried out remotely by the ground station.

On July 29, 1978, an external mission was on the program, in which some experiments had to be collected on the outside of the space station. As usual, both cosmonauts were involved. This mission lasted 2 hours and 5 minutes. The air in Salyut 6 was then refilled from the Progress 2 tanks.

The space freighter was filled with rubbish and disconnected on August 2nd. Two days later, Progress 2 was deliberately crashed.

The next supply ship, Progress 3 , docked on August 9, 1978. Once again, consumables and equipment were reloaded and fuel was transferred. The decoupling took place on August 21st, two days later the freighter burned up in the earth's atmosphere as planned.

Second visit: Soyuz 31

The second visiting team was coupled on August 27, 1978. On board Soyuz 31 were the Vostok veteran Valeri Bykowski as commander, and Sigmund Jähn from the GDR as a research cosmonaut. Jähn was not only the first GDR cosmonaut, but also the first ever German space traveler . Similar to Soyuz 30, various experiments were carried out for a week. This time, however, the replacement of the spaceships was planned because Soyuz 29 had already been in space for over two months. That is why Bykowski and Jähn returned to Earth on September 3rd with Soyuz 29 and left Soyuz 31 to the regular crew.

Recoupling

The systems for refueling the space station were located on the rear coupling port, which was now occupied by the Soyuz spacecraft. In order to enable coupling of a Progress freighter, Soyuz 31 had to be moved from the rear coupling nozzle to the front one. This happened on September 7, 1978. Kowaljonok and Ivanchenkov got into the spacecraft, disconnected at 10:53 and backed a few hundred meters. Then the space station was rotated remotely from the ground station. Around 12:03 p.m., the cosmonauts were able to reconnect and re-enter the space station. This was the first time that a spaceship decoupled from a space station. This became routine for later space station crews.

Progress 4

The rear coupling connection was now free for the space freighter Progress 4 , which docked at Salyut 6 on October 6, 1978 and brought fresh supplies and equipment to the space station. Progress 4 remained docked until October 24th and was separated, loaded with garbage. The brake was ignited on October 26th, after which the freighter burned up in the earth's atmosphere.

landing

Towards the end of the mission, the cosmonauts noticed irregularities in the space station's fuel lines, which indicated a leak in one of the three tanks. The repair should be left to the next team.

On November 2, 1978, Kovaljonok and Ivanchenkov boarded the Soyuz 31 spacecraft and disconnected from Salyut 6 at 07:46. The brake was ignited at 10:15:17, the landing at 11:04:17.

Significance for the Salyut program

With this flight, the Soviet manned space flight had another success. Both the space station and the spaceships and unmanned supply ships had worked without any problems. The refueling by Progress freighters and the replacement of the Soyuz spaceships were able to considerably increase the residence time of a long-term crew.

At 139 days, Kowaljonik and Ivanchenkov broke the long-term record set by their predecessors for a space mission by almost half. Since Kowaljonok had previously been in space with Soyuz 25, he also held the record for the longest total time in space at 141 days.

The Soviet Union thus expanded its leadership vis-à-vis the USA. The NASA was still in the break between the Apollo program and the space shuttle . Originally it was planned to visit the US space station Skylab , which had been in orbit since 1973, with one of the first shuttle flights and to raise the orbit. Due to delays in the shuttle program, however, this could not be carried out, and on December 19, 1978 NASA had to announce that Skylab could not be saved. The crash took place on July 11, 1979. The operation of a space station remained a monopoly of the Soviet Union for the foreseeable future.

See also

Web links