Salyut 6 EO-3

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Mission dates
Mission: Salyut 6 EO-3
Call sign: Протон (" proton ")
Crew: 2
Begin: February 25, 1979, 11:53:49  UTC
Starting place: Baikonur 31/6
Space station: Salyut 6
Coupling: February 26, 1979, 13:29:55 UTC
Decoupling: August 19, 1979, 09:07 UTC
Landing: August 19, 1979, 12:29:26 UTC
Flight duration: 175d 00h 35m
◄ Before / After ►
Salyut 6 EO-2 Salyut 6 EO-4

Salyut 6 EO-3 was the name of the third long-term stay on board the Soviet space station Salyut 6 . The two cosmonauts started with Soyuz 32 and returned to Earth with Soyuz 34 .

crew

Lyachow and Ryumin, the reserve team of the previous long-term crew, were nominated as the main team. It was Lyakhov's first space flight, while Ryumin had previously unsuccessfully participated in the first attempt at coupling to Salyut 6. His flight with Soyuz 25 in October 1977 had to be terminated prematurely.

The substitute team consisted of Leonid Popov and Valentin Lebedew , the support team of Vyacheslav Sudow and Boris Andreyev .

State of the space station

Salyut 6 had been in space for 17 months and had previously been flown to by two long-term crews and four visiting crews, with the second crew remaining on board for over four months. Shortly before the end of this mission, defects in the tanks and fuel lines had been discovered, which should now be repaired by the third crew.

Mission history

Start and pairing

Soyuz 32 took off on February 25, 1979 with Lyakhov and Ryumin on board. The next day, the two cosmonauts docked at the front coupling connection of Salyut 6 and transferred to the space station, which had remained unmanned for almost four months.

Progress 5 and repair

The first docking during the third mission took place on March 14 at 07:19:21 UTC by the cargo spacecraft Progress 5 . The next day, the repair of the tank and pipe system began, with the tanks of the Progress freighter being used as an intermediate storage facility for the fuel.

Ryumin and Lyachow were able to reseal the defective tank. The tank remained exposed to the vacuum for seven days so that all residual contents could evaporate. The tank and pipe system were flushed several times with nitrogen.

On April 3, Progress 5 undocked and burned up two days later in the earth's atmosphere as planned. The free coupling socket was needed for the next spaceship.

Coupling attempt by Soyuz 33

Soyuz 33 took off on April 10, 1979. Nikolai Rukavischnikow was the commander of the spacecraft on its third space flight. On board was Georgi Ivanov , the first Bulgarian cosmonaut. The planned replacement of the Soyuz spaceships failed, however, because Soyuz 33 failed to couple due to an engine failure. Rukawischnikow and Ivanov had to return to earth after just two days. For Rukawischnikow it was the second time after Soyuz 10 in April 1971 that he was denied a stay in a space station. Ryumin had already experienced the same situation with Soyuz 25 in October 1977 . In between, Soyuz 15 and Soyuz 23, two further attempts at coupling with space stations had failed. Lyachow and Ryumin now only had the Soyuz 32 spacecraft available for their return, and its planned duration of use expired at the end of May. In addition, there were concerns that a similar engine failure as in Soyuz 33 could also exist in Soyuz 32. If it was not possible to send the two cosmonauts a fresh spaceship, their mission would have to be terminated prematurely.

Progress 6

First, however, there was another supply flight with an unmanned freighter. Progress 6 coupled to the rear coupling port on May 15th at 06:19:22. It stayed there until June 8th to make way for a new lifeboat. The unmanned spacecraft Soyuz 34 had launched two days earlier .

The Soyuz 34 lifeboat

Just 12 hours after disconnecting Progress 6, Soyuz 34 connected to the rear coupling socket of Salyut 6. Thus Ryumin and Lyachow were again provided with an operational lifeboat.

Soyuz 32, which was on the front coupling port, was loaded with research results and defective Salyut devices. On June 13th, the spaceship was separated from the space station. The ground station fired the brake rockets remotely, but in contrast to the Progress freighters, the spaceship should not burn up in the earth's atmosphere, but land softly in the Soviet Union, which also succeeded. It was the first time that a spacecraft that had started manned landed back on Earth unmanned.

On June 14, 1979, Lyachow and Ryumin boarded the Soyuz 34 spaceship at the rear coupling port and transferred it to the front one, rotating the space station in front of the waiting spaceship. This was the first time space travelers had flown a spaceship that was launched unmanned.

The next supply ship, Progress 7 , docked on June 30, 1979 at 11:18:22. In addition to fuel and supplies, the KRT-10 radio telescope , which was delivered in individual parts, was on board . Ryumin and Lyakhov had not fully seen the KRT-10 because the tests had not yet been completed at the time of their launch. Over the next few days, the two cosmonauts put the radio telescope together and mounted it on the rear coupling socket where Progress 7 was still attached. On July 18, Progress 7 decoupled. A television camera on board the freighter showed the antenna unfolded to its full size of 10 meters in diameter. As usual, the Progress transporter was then deliberately crashed.

Exit

For August 9, it was planned to repel the KRT-10 antenna, which was mounted on the rear coupling socket. This maneuver failed, however, and the antenna could not be shaken off by jerky movements of the space station.

This blocked the coupling nozzle for other Progress ships, and the Salyut engines could no longer be used to raise the orbit. This seemed to seal the fate of the space station. The crew and flight control agreed, however, to try to detach the antenna from the Salyut during a space exit.

On August 15, Lyakhov and Ryumin left the Salyut. Ryumin made his way back along the outside of the station. He noticed that the antenna had partially damaged the station's insulation. After he cut a few cables, the antenna swung back and forth and threatened to graze him. Ryumin, however, was able to cut loose the antenna completely and push it away from the station with a stick.

After that, Ryumin inspected the exterior of the station. The insulation had lost its color in some places or had even broken off. Ryumin removed some parts that had been exposed to space conditions for almost two years and hid the micrometeorite detector.

return

A few days later, on August 19, 1979, Lyachow and Ryumin boarded their Soyuz 34 spacecraft and undocked at 09:07 UTC. The brake ignition took place at 11:39:32, the landing in the steppe of Kazakhstan at 12:29:26.

Significance for the Salyut program

The third mission on board the Salyut 6 space station can also be considered a success. Again a new long-term record had been set: with 175 days Lyachow and Ryumin had clearly surpassed the 139 days of their predecessors Kovaljonok and Ivanchenkov . Due to his short flight with Soyuz 25 , Ryumin was even the sole record holder for the longest total time in space with 177 days.

Of course, one had to be dissatisfied with the Soyuz 33 mission . Due to the problems with the propulsion of the spaceship, the Soviet-Bulgarian research program could not be carried out. After all, this mistake led to two first achievements: the unmanned landing of a spacecraft that had started manned, and the manned landing of a spacecraft that had started unmanned.

For the Salyut 6 space station, there was now a longer unmanned phase before the fourth long-term crew would go on board just eight months later. Nevertheless, the station was flown to twice unmanned: from December 19, 1979 to March 23, 1980, the first copy of the new Soyuz spaceship type, Soyuz T-1, was docked, and from March 29, 1980 the Progress 8 transporter was at the rear port.

NASA 's US space program was still on the hiatus between the Apollo program and the space shuttle . The development of the space shuttle had been delayed more and more. Originally one of the first flights was supposed to go to the Skylab space station , but its orbit height had decreased faster than expected. Skylab crashed on July 11, 1979 without being approached again.

See also

Web links