Soyuz 5

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Mission dates
Mission: Soyuz 5
COSPAR-ID : 1969-005A
Spacecraft: Soyuz 7K-OK (P) ( GRAU index  11F615)
serial number 13
Dimensions: 6575 kg
Launcher: Soyuz (GRAY index 11A511)
Call sign: Russian Байкал (" Baikal ")
Crew: 3 at takeoff
1 at landing
Begin: January 15, 1969, 07:04:57  UTC
Starting place: Baikonur 1/5
Space station: Soyuz 4
Coupling: January 16, 1969, 08:20 UTC
Decoupling: January 16, 1969, 12:55 UTC
Duration on Soyuz 4: 4h 35min
Number of EVA : 1
Landing: January 18, 1969, 07:59:12 UTC
Landing place: 200 km southwest of Kustanai ,
25 km SE of Jetygara
Flight duration: 3d 0h 54min 15s
Earth orbits: 49
Rotation time : 88.9 min
Apogee : 233 km
Perigee : 210 km
◄ Before / After ►
Soyuz 4
(manned) 		Soyuz 6
(manned)

Soyuz 5 is the mission name for the flight of a Soviet Soyuz spaceship that started on January 15, 1969 . It was the fourth manned flight of a Soyuz spaceship and the 13th flight in the Soviet Soyuz program.

crew

Starting crew

Volynov had previously been a substitute on several missions. Chrunow and Jelissejew (and their substitutes Gorbatko and Kubasow) had already trained switching from one spaceship to another for the canceled Soyuz 2A flight in 1967.

Replacement crew

The support team consisted of Anatoly Petrovich Kuklin , Wladislav Nikolajewitsch Volkov and Pyotr Ivanovich Kolodin .

Return crew

Mission overview

Soyuz 5 was part of a joint mission with Soyuz 4 . The two Soviet spaceships were in space together with a total of four cosmonauts on board.

The two spaceships coupled on January 16, 1969. It was the first coupling of two manned spaceships in space travel history. Both spaceships were electrically and mechanically connected to each other, but had no access hatch to the other spaceship. The Soviet news agency TASS wrote at the time: “... it was a mutual coupling of the two ships ... and their circuits were connected. Therefore, the world's first experimental space station from four departments was put together for the crew and began to work ... "

Alexei Yelisseyev and Yevgeny Khrunov began preparing for space exit immediately after coupling . Boris Wolynow, who remained on board Soyuz 5, filmed as his two colleagues Jastreb -Raumanzüge docked.

Space exit

  • Participants : Chrunow and Jelissejew
  • Start : January 16, 1969, 00:38 UTC
  • End : January 16, 1969, 01:15 UTC
  • Duration : 37 min

During the mission, parts of the planned Soviet moon landing were to be rehearsed. The Soviet television broadcast the preparations for the space exit live. Yelissejew and Khrunov put on their "Yastreb" suits in the orbital module of Soyuz 5 with the help of the commander Boris Wolynow. The development of the “Jastreb” spacesuits began in 1965, shortly after Alexei Leonov's first problematic space exit . Leonov acted as a consultant during the development, which was completed in 1966. Manufacture and testing took place in 1967, but the Soyuz 1 accident and Soyuz 2 and Soyuz 3 coupling problems in October 1968 postponed the first deployment in space until this mission. In order to eliminate the problems that made Leonov's exit so problematic, the “Jastreb” suits used a rope-roller-joint system. Large metal rings around the nylon undersuit served as anchors for the upper joints. The suit had a regenerative life support system in a white metal box on the stomach of the suit. Wolynov checked the life support and communication systems of both cosmonaut suits before returning to the command module, closing the communication hatch and decompressing the orbital module.

During the 35th orbit around the world, both cosmonauts got out. It was only the second Soviet space exit ever. As he stepped out, Chrunov's tethers got tangled and he accidentally turned off his suit ventilation. This distracted Yelisseyev and he forgot to turn on the film camera before leaving the orbital module. As a result, there is only poor video and no film footage of this historic space exit.

Chrunov was the first to move to the orbital module of Soyuz 4 when the two spaceships were over South America and thus out of radio contact with the ground station. Yelissejew switched when the complex was over the Soviet Union. When they arrived in the orbital module of Soyuz 4, they closed the hatch behind them. The commandant Vladimir Shatalov restored the cabin pressure and helped them out of their suits. Chrunov and Yelisseyev brought newspapers, letters and telegrams with them that had been printed after Shatalov's start, as proof that the transfer had actually taken place.

After both spaceships were coupled to each other for four hours and 35 minutes, they separated again and began separate descents.

This mission demonstrated the possibility that the steps necessary for the Soviet lunar program could be carried out in space. The plan provided for a single cosmonaut who got back into the spaceship via an exit from the landing module. Unlike the Apollo spacecraft , the Soviet model did not have a connecting tunnel between the landing and command module.

return

After disconnecting from Soyuz 4, Volynov stayed in Soyuz 5 for a while in the cosmos, before returning to Earth in a spectacular re-entry maneuver. For this, pilot Wolynow tested a manual orientation of the spaceship for the later ignition of the brakes. He succeeded in a test in space, but not in the two attempts (8:50 a.m. and 10:20 a.m.) for the actual braking maneuver, whereupon he triggered the automatic landing intended for emergencies, which in turn included a descent on a ballistic curve 9 g instead of 3 g meant braking acceleration. Another problem arose later in the flight: after the end of the braking maneuver, the pyrotechnics ignited the service module to disconnect it (whose insufficient performance is now suspected to be the cause of the problem), but it did not separate completely from the return module and so the spaceship staggered dangerous. The still connected ship was already too deep in the atmosphere to be demolished. This problem has already occurred with a few Vostok , Vozhod and a Mercury missions, but in this case it was a much more serious problem for the pilot, as the Soyuz service module is much larger than it was on the previous types. Unfortunately, the chief designer Vasily Mishin was not present at this time, as he slept off his intoxication from the banquet in honor of the coupling the day before and did not appear in the control room until around eleven o'clock. When the Soyuz landing capsule dipped into the atmosphere, the still partially connected spacecraft sought the most aerodynamically stable position - in this case with the non-heat-resistant nose ahead. This means that the heavy return module was exposed to the air resistance with the unprotected side first. The forward hatch seals began to burn, filling the lander with toxic fumes. The braking acceleration pressed Wolynov, who was not wearing a pressure suit, against the belts instead of into his padded seat. In this situation, he tried to save the important records of the coupling process by stuffing them into his seat in the hope that they would be suspected coming disaster survived there. The next thing on the tape recordings of Wolynov's transcript was the crack of the explosion of the equipment section's fuel tanks. This bulged the hatch inwards, but it held. The braking rockets of the return module, which were normally supposed to slow down re-entry, did not work either (although the automatic system indicated this), since their fuel had been used up by the computer in an unsuccessful attempt to compensate for the tumbling movements.

Fortunately, before the hatch gave way, the connecting struts between the return and service modules broke or burned as the thermal and aerodynamic loads increased. The return capsule immediately aligned itself with the heat-protected side facing forward.

Two other problems for Volynov were that the parachute only partially unfolded, as the parachute ropes were partially tangled, and that the landing missiles (probably damaged during the unfortunate descent) did not work properly. The cosmonaut broke his upper jaw on the subsequent hard landing and knocked out some teeth. The capsule landed southeast of the Urals , very far (around 600 km) from its intended landing site in the Kazakh SSR near the border with Orenburg Oblast . The temperature at this point was -38 ° C and knowing that it would take the rescue teams several hours to find him, Wolynov left the landing capsule and walked several kilometers until he found a farmer's house where he could warm up .

The technicians themselves were surprised by the robustness of the spaceship, which is attributed to the titanium structures used.

Others

On 24 January 1969, the crews of both spacecraft should the then Soviet Communist Party - Secretary Leonid Brezhnev during a welcoming ceremony in front of the Kremlin meeting. But this was prevented by an assassination attempt on the Soviet leader. Second Lieutenant Viktor Ilyin fired eight times at the convoy, but by mistake he did not aim at Brezhnev's car, but at the one in which the cosmonauts Georgi Beregovoy , Alexei Leonov , Andrijan Nikolayev and Valentina Tereshkova were sitting. The driver of the car was killed, a driver of the motorcycle escort, Beregovoy and Nikolayev were slightly injured, the latter was able to stop the vehicle. Brezhnev's car then drove past the Soyuz 4 and 5 crews waiting in the stands.

See also

Web links

Commons : Soyuz 5  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Michael Gräfe: After the triumph, only narrowly escaped death: 40 years ago - first coupling of two manned spaceships . In: FliegerRevue . tape 57 , no. 1 , January 2009, p. 43-46 .