Soyuz 23

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Mission dates
Mission: Soyuz 23
COSPAR-ID : 1976-100A
Spacecraft: Soyuz 7K-T ( GRAY index  11F615A9)
serial number 65
Dimensions: 6760 kg
Launcher: Soyuz U (GRAY index 11A511U)
Call sign: Радон (" Radon ")
Crew: 2
Begin: October 14, 1976, 17:39:18  UTC
Starting place: Baikonur 1/5
Space station: Salyut 5
Landing: October 16, 1976, 17:45:53 UTC
Landing place: 195 km southwest of Zelinograd
Flight duration: 2d 0h 6min 35s
Earth orbits: 32
Rotation time : 89.5 min
Apogee : 269 ​​km
Perigee : 239 km
◄ Before / After ►
Soyuz 22
(manned) 		Kosmos 869
(unmanned)
Next manned mission:
Soyuz 24

Soyuz 23 is the mission name for the flight of a Soviet Soyuz spaceship to the Soviet space station Salyut 5 (ALMAZ 3), which started on October 14, 1976 . For technical reasons, however, the Soyuz spaceship was not coupled to this space station. It was the 40th flight in the Soviet Soyuz program.

crew

Main team

Sudow and Roshdestvensky were previously support teams for Soyuz 14 and Soyuz 15 , as well as replacement teams for Soyuz 21 .

Substitute team

The support team consisted of Anatoly Berezovoy and Mikhail Lisun .

Mission overview

The flight to the military space station Salyut 5 reached the space station, but an error in the coupling mechanism prevented the fixed connection. In this respect, the error was comparable to the problems that had existed with Soyuz 15. Once again the automatic system had failed and there was insufficient fuel for a manual coupling maneuver.

The ship had to return to earth after two days. A serious incident occurred. The landing took place in the partially frozen Tengizsee during a snow storm. The landing capsule was floating in the water, but because the parachutes had not been dropped, the exit hatch was under water, as was a valve that was supposed to provide fresh air and had already been opened automatically. A radio connection to the rescue teams was not possible. Sudow and Roshdestvensky turned off the heating and used the air regeneration system only sparsely.

Various attempts by the rescue teams to reach the landing capsule with amphibious vehicles failed (the lake is about three times the size of Lake Constance ). After a long time, divers were able to attach a rope to the landing capsule so that a helicopter could tow it to the shore. The hatch was not opened until eleven hours after landing. To the surprise of the rescue team, the cosmonauts were alive.

Trivia

Valery Roshdestvensky is one of the few cosmonauts who were not trained pilots. Since he was the commander of a deep-sea diving unit of the Baltic Red Banner Fleet , it was joked after the landing that he couldn't have landed anywhere else but naturally in a lake.

See also

swell

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Matthias founder, Horst Hoffmann, Gerhard Kowalski: SOS in space . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, 2001, ISBN 978-3-89602-339-1 , pp. 190-191 .