Viktor Wassiljewitsch Gorbatko

Viktor Gorbatko
Country:	USSR
Organization:	WWS
selected on	March 7, 1960 (1st cosmonaut group)
Calls:	3 space flights
Start of the first space flight:	October 12, 1969
Landing of the last space flight:	July 31, 1980
Time in space:	30d 12h 47min
retired on	August 1982
Space flights
Soyuz 7 (1969) Soyuz 24 (1977) Soyuz 37 / Soyuz 36 (1980) Salyut 6 EP-7

Viktor Wassiljewitsch Gorbatko ( Russian Виктор Васильевич Горбатко ; born December 3, 1934 in Wenzy-Sarja , Azov-Black Sea region , today in the Krasnodar region , Russian SFSR , Soviet Union ; † May 17, 2017 in Moscow ) was a Soviet cosmon .

Gorbatko first attended middle school, then joined the Soviet Army and was trained as a military aviator from 1952 to 1956. Then he did service in the air force .

Vostok and Vozhod

From March 1960, Gorbatko and 19 other air force pilots formed the first cosmonaut group in the Soviet Union . He went through the entire training program, but was not one of the six cosmonauts who were to carry out the first flights of the Vostok spacecraft .

It was intended for later Vostok flights, which were then canceled in favor of the multi-seat Vozhod spaceships . The crew division of the Soviet space flights was not only made from a technical point of view, political reasons and the rivalry of the competing design offices also played a role.

At first Gorbatko was supposed to be one of the commanders of the first two Vozhod flights, but then only the post of substitute commander of Vozhod 2 remained for him . On the next mission, Vozhod 3 , Gorbatko would have had a chance of making his first space flight, but the preparations were dragging on. This flight was never officially canceled, but never got into a concrete planning stage.

Soyuz

From autumn 1965 Gorbatko was together with seven other cosmonauts in training for the new Soyuz spaceships , which were designed for the Soviet lunar landing program. At times he formed a team with Andrijan Nikolajew , the veteran of Vostok 3 .

Towards the end of 1966, Gorbatko was traded as a replacement crew for one of the first two Soyuz flights and as a crew for one of the next two. As usual, the final assignment would only be made shortly before the start.

Gorbatko was actually intended as a substitute for Soyuz 2A . This spaceship was to serve as a passive rendezvous and docking partner for Soyuz 1 in April 1967 and enable two of its cosmonauts to make the transition in space.

Due to problems with Soyuz 1 in orbit, the ready-to-launch Soyuz 2A remained on the ground. That saved the life of the Soyuz 2A crew, because Soyuz 1 shattered during landing due to a design and manufacturing failure of the parachute system. Its commander Vladimir Komarov was killed. The same defects were subsequently found in Soyuz 2A as well.

In August 1967 Gorbatko was diagnosed with heart problems, after which he was temporarily denied that he was fit to fly.

On December 15, 1968, like some of his cosmonaut colleagues, Gorbatko received his diploma from the Schukowsky Test Pilot College.

The failed mission of Soyuz 1 and Soyuz 2, the docking in Earth orbit and the transfer of two cosmonauts was made up for by Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5 in January 1969 . Gorbatko was substitute for Yevgeny Chrunow and Alexei Yelissejew in Soyuz 5, but was not used.

In April 1969, Gorbatko was finally assigned to his first space flight, in which three Soyuz spacecraft should be involved for the first time.

On October 12, 1969, Gorbatko started as a research cosmonaut with Soyuz 7 . Also on board were the commander Anatoly Filipchenko and flight engineer Vladislav Volkov , who both also made their first space flight.

Gorbatko had waited almost nine years for his first space flight. The day before, Georgi Schonin had started with Soyuz 6 , so that only Dmitri Saikin, a member of the first cosmonaut group of the USSR, was waiting for his mission. However, Saikin had to leave the cosmonaut corps for medical reasons the following October, so Gorbatko was the one of the first group who had to wait the longest for his deployment.

In Earth orbit, Soyuz 7 rendezvoused with Soyuz 6 and Soyuz 8 . However, a planned coupling failed. The space flight lasted five days.

Salyut and Intercosmos

After that flight, Gorbatko was trained for the new Salyut space station, but the Soyuz 11 disaster and problems with the following Salyut stations delayed the program.

Only in 1976 did he get a flight assignment again: he worked in the support team of Soyuz 21 . For the flight from Soyuz 23 in October 1976 he was on the substitute team.

On February 7, 1977 Gorbatko took off with Soyuz 24 on his second space flight, this time as commander. Together with his flight engineer Juri Glaskow , he flew to the Salyut 5 space station , which the crew of Soyuz 21 had left prematurely. This space flight lasted 18 days.

In 1978 he was a substitute for Valery Bykowski on the Soyuz 31 space flight , during which a German ( Sigmund Jähn ) flew into space for the first time as part of the Interkosmos program . Gorbatko's German partner in the replacement crew was Eberhard Köllner .

Gorbatko took off for his third space flight on July 2, 1980 with Soyuz 37 . Together with the Vietnamese cosmonaut Phạm Tuân , he flew to the Salyut 6 space station and met the regular crew Leonid Popov and Valeri Ryumin there . After eight days they returned in the Soyuz 36 spacecraft .

After the active time

When Valeri Bykowski , Alexei Leonow , Andrijan Nikolajew and Pawel Popowitsch left the cosmonaut corps on January 26, 1982 , Gorbatko was the only remaining active cosmonaut in the first group alongside Boris Wolynow .

Gorbatko resigned shortly afterwards on August 28, 1982 and became deputy president of the Sports Committee of the Soviet Ministry of Defense. He later worked as a professor at the Moscow Air Force Engineering Academy.

Gorbatko was married and has two daughters from his first marriage.

See also

• List of spacemen
• First cosmonaut group in the Soviet Union
• List of Soyuz missions
• Soyuz (spaceship)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Умер космонавт Виктор Горбатко (Russian)

Web links

Commons : Wiktor Gorbatko  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• spacefacts.de: biography