Vozhod 3
Vozhod 3 was the name of a planned manned Soviet space flight, which was repeatedly postponed but never canceled.
Vozhod 1 and Vozhod 2
With the first two Vozhod flights, the Soviet Union had made spectacular first achievements. Voskhod 1 started on 12. October 1964 as the first longer-seater spaceship and the flight of Voskhod 2 on 18th March 1965 left for the first time a spaceman his spaceship for a spacewalk . The technical problems with both space flights were concealed from the public.
The Vozhod spaceships actually consisted of expanded Vostok spaceships and were primarily intended to bridge the period until the new Soyuz spaceship was ready for use.
Planning for Voschod 3
Vozhod 3 was planned for a long-term flight, which should further increase the previous record of Vostok 5 with just under five days. For this purpose, the Vozhod spaceship should be redesigned so that it could allow missions to last up to 15 days. On August 29, 1965 , however, the Americans set the world record for the first time: Gemini 5 stayed in orbit for eight days.
The start of Woschod 3 was planned for autumn 1965, but was delayed more and more. A test spaceship was launched on February 22, 1966 under the designation Kosmos 110 . The return capsule landed on schedule after 22 days. The two dogs on board had survived this flight well, even though the orbit was through the Van Allen Belt .
Delays
A manned flight was delayed further, however, because now problems with the launcher also arose. In the meantime, the Americans had increased the endurance record to 14 days with Gemini 7 in December 1965, carried out the first manned rendezvous with Gemini 6, and carried out the first coupling in Earth orbit in March 1966 with Gemini 8 .
A pure long-term flight, without maneuvering and coupling options, did not seem spectacular enough to the Soviets, so they wanted to concentrate their efforts on the new Soyuz spaceship , whose first flight might even be possible in 1966.
However, it was not appropriate to officially cancel the flight, rather it was postponed again and again. In October 1966 there were again instructions to continue planning the flight. A start in early 1967 seemed possible, but was not particularly pushed. The flight from Vozhod 3 was forgotten but was never officially canceled.
The crew
In contrast to NASA , the Soviet space agency did not announce planned launches with their crews in advance. Even internally, the final team was only decided a few days before the start. Potential cosmonauts had to undergo an examination beforehand, but in addition to this official procedure there were also political reasons for disadvantaging or preferring certain cosmonauts.
Nikolai Kamanin , the head of cosmonaut training, favored Boris Wolynow as commander and Georgi Katys as science cosmonaut for the flight of Voschod 3 . However, both were not particularly well respected in higher places. Volynov was of Jewish descent and Katys' father had been executed as an enemy of the state. As a substitute team were proposed by Kamanin Georgi Beregowoi and Lev Djomin .
In November 1965 it was decided that in addition to the commander, the second cosmonaut should also be a military aviator. Either Yevgeny Khrunov or Viktor Gorbatko were to fly with Volynov Commander , with Beregovoy and Vladimir Shatalov as reserve crews. In January 1966, however, Georgi Schonin was seen as a pilot.
It is therefore impossible to specify the crew for this flight.
According to some sources, Katys lost his place in the main crew because his father was executed as an enemy of the state and he had siblings who lived in France. The fact that Katy's father was rehabilitated in 1957 and Katy's half-siblings left Russia in 1910 speaks against this. Katys remained a cosmonaut candidate until 1974.
meaning
Although Soviet space travel was in the lead over the USA from 1957 to 1964, it was only able to show limited further developments after the Vostok spaceships. Bad management, internal rivalry, and political intrigues meant that the best did not always prevail in Soviet space travel. Various delays resulted in the USSR not conducting manned spaceflight for a long period from March 1965 , while NASA made great strides through the Gemini program and clearly took the lead. The Soviet leadership urged to keep the gap small, and so in April 1967 the immature Soyuz spacecraft was cleared for the first manned launch of Soyuz 1 .
Individual evidence
- ^ Asif Siddiqi: Challenge To Apollo: The Soviet Union and The Space Race, 1945–1974, pp. 416/417
- ↑ Nikolai Kamanin, Diaries, entries from September 2 and 24, 1964 in the Encyclopedia Astronautica (English), accessed on February 12, 2018
- ↑ Katys biography at www.astronaut.ru (Russian), accessed February 12, 2018
