Salyut 7 EO-1

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Mission dates
Mission: Salyut 7 EO-1
Crew: 2
Call sign: Эльбрус (" Elbrus ")
Rescue ships: Soyuz T-5 , Soyuz T-7
Space station: Salyut 7
Start: May 13, 1982, 09:58:00  UTC
Started by: Soyuz T-5 launch
The End: December 10, 1982, 19:02:36 UTC
Ended by: Landing of Soyuz T-7
Duration: 211d 09h 04min
Number of EVAs : 1
Total length of the EVAs: 2h, 33m
Team photo
Berezovoy (left) and Lebedev as postage stamp image.
Berezovoy (left) and Lebedev as postage stamp image.
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Salyut 7 EO-2

Salyut 7 EO-1 was the name of the first long-term stay on board the Soviet space station Salyut 7 . The two cosmonauts took off with Soyuz T-5 and returned to Earth with Soyuz T-7 .

crew

Main team

For Berezovoy it was the first space flight. It had previously been scheduled for a flight to Salyut 5 , which then did not take place. Lebedev had already participated in a test flight of the Soyuz spacecraft in 1973 .

Substitute team

The commander was also a newcomer to the replacement team, while the flight engineer already had space experience. Strekalov tested the three-seat version of the Soyuz spaceship in 1980 with the Soyuz T-3 .

Mission history

Start and commissioning

Berezovoy and Lebedev took off with Soyuz T-5 on May 13, 1982 . The following day they performed the first pairing with the new Salyut 7 space station .

One of their first activities was the launch of the shortwave amateur radio satellite Iskra 2 on May 17th. This was the first time a communications satellite had been launched from a manned spacecraft.

On May 25, the space freighter Progress 13 docked with the space station. In order to be able to observe the docking, Berezovoy and Lebedev manipulated a hatch that was actually not allowed to be open during the maneuver. The cosmonauts forgot to undo this, and when the flight control noticed that the cosmonauts later moved freely again, although the hatch was still closed according to the signal, they were rebuked.

Progress 13 stayed docked until June 4th. Two days earlier, the Progress engines had lowered the altitude of the space station. This made it possible to dock the next Soyuz T-6 spaceship , which with three crew members would not have reached the previous altitude of the Salyut.

Visit: Soyuz T-6

On June 25th, the Soyuz T-6 docked the first visiting crew at Salyut 7. On board were Commander Dschanibekow , flight engineer Ivanchenkov and the French research cosmonaut Chrétien , the first Western European spaceman. Before the coupling, the argon computer on board the Salyut had failed, so that Commander Dschanibekov had to control the approach manually.

The space station was manned by five people for a week, until the Soyuz T-6 disconnected on July 2nd.

First exit

The freighter Progress 14 was docked from July 12 to August 10, 1982 . Among other things, the corundum laboratory furnace was delivered with it.

On July 30, 1982, Berezovoi and Lebedev made the first space exit . From the ground station, Alexei Leonow , the first person to go into space, was always in radio contact with the cosmonauts. Lebedev first assembled a camera and a spotlight. Then he exchanged some experiments on the outer shell of the station. Berezovoy stayed in the open lock. Lebedev also inspected the exterior of Salyut 7 and tested some procedures that should be used in future exits.

Replacement of the spaceship: Soyuz T-7

On August 20, the Soyuz T-7 spacecraft docked . The second visiting team consisted of Commandant Leonid Popov , flight engineer Alexander Serebrov and research cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya . After Valentina Tereshkova in 1963, Savitskaya was only the second woman in space.

Salyut 7 was manned by five people for a week. This was the first time a space station had a mixed-sex crew. Savitskaya was assigned the Soyuz T-7 orbital module as a private area, but slept like the men in the space station.

The visiting crew took over the Soyuz T-5 spacecraft, whose shelf life in space was nearing its end, and returned to Earth on August 27th.

On August 29, the Soyuz T-7 was moved from the rear to the front coupling nozzle so that space would be free for a Progress freighter.

More work

On September 7, the cosmonauts trained how to behave in the event of a leak in the station. With the help of the Diusa measuring device, they were able to determine how much time they would still have to switch off the systems, collect experiments, put on their spacesuit and board the Soyuz spaceship. A bag with the results of experiments was always stored near the hatch to the spacecraft.

If there are only five minutes until the pressure drops, practically nothing can be saved on the ward. If, on the other hand, there is still an hour left, the leak can be located and the corresponding module isolated. There were also emergency plans that were practiced for a loss of pressure in the spaceship itself or in the event of a fire on board.

In the event of an emergency landing of the spaceship, a landing site in the Soviet Union was naturally sought. If that were not possible, the Sea of ​​Okhotsk , southern France and even the American Midwest were planned as alternative places .

The spacecraft Progress 15 was docked from September 20 to October 14, 1982, and Progress 16 from November 2 to December 13, 1982. Both spacecraft were also used to raise the altitude of the space station.

Berezovoy developed health problems in mid-November. The mission was aborted, but Berezovoy recovered after Lebedev had given him an injection.

On November 18, the cosmonauts deployed a second amateur radio satellite through the lock. Iskra 3 , which was delivered with Progress 16, burned up after four weeks of operation.

Return and recovery

The mission had to be ended prematurely because the Delta navigation computer, which was also responsible for aligning the station, was no longer working correctly. The flight control decided to abort the mission and have Delta repaired by the next crew.

Berezovoy and Lebedev went to Soyuz T-7, disconnected and fired the brakes. Since this took place outside of the scheduled time, the landing had to be carried out in the dark. In addition, the weather was much worse than forecast: there was blowing snow and the temperature was −9 ° C. Soyuz T-7 landed on a hill in deep snow at around 1 a.m. The parachutes pulled the overturning landing capsule downhill.

The rescue teams could not see the landing capsule, but could locate their transmitter. The helicopters could not land in heavy snowstorms. One tried anyway, but damaged the landing gear. Twenty minutes after landing, the cosmonauts had disembarked and were warming themselves in a tracked vehicle that had meanwhile arrived. The fuel that supplied the heater was already running out when the helicopters returned that morning.

Due to the premature return, the cosmonauts had not prepared themselves physically, and so the adaptation to terrestrial gravity took longer than on previous missions.

Unmanned operation

Since the Soviet coupling maneuvers, in contrast to the American ones, are carried out fully automatically, the supply of the space station could still be secured. On March 2, 1983, an unmanned TKS spaceship called Kosmos 1443 was launched, with which significantly more cargo could be transported than with the Progress freighters. Among other things, new memory modules for the Delta computer and other solar panels were on board.

The approach was carried out very slowly, on the one hand to save fuel, on the other hand because this was only the second attempt at coupling with a TKS spaceship.

After Kosmos had docked on March 10th in 1443, the freighter took over the attitude control of the space station. On April 5th and 11th, Kosmos 1443 lowered the altitude of Salyut 7 in preparation for the rendezvous with the next Soyuz T-8 mission.

Significance for the Salyut program

Berezovoy and Lebedev had set a new long-term record with just under seven months in space.

The mission was also a scientific success. The cosmonauts carried out about 300 experiments from different areas. Among other things, it was possible for the first time to use foam cresses to grow plants in zero gravity until they fully developed. By observing the earth, they were able to identify 40 potential mineral deposits.

The Salyut 7 space station had proven to be functional, even if it had computer problems. The repair of the Delta computer and the installation of additional solar cells were planned for the next team, which was to take off with the Soyuz T-8 .

See also

Web links