Vostok 5
| Mission dates | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Mission: | Vostok 5 | ||
| COSPAR-ID : | 1963-020A | ||
| Spacecraft: | Vostok | ||
| Dimensions: | 4720 kg | ||
| Call sign: | Ястреб (Jastreb - " hawk ") | ||
| Crew: | 1 | ||
| Begin: | June 14, 1963, 11:58 UT | ||
| Starting place: | Baikonur 1/5 | ||
| Landing: | June 19, 1963, 11:06 UT | ||
| Landing place: | 540 km northwest of Karaganda 53 ° 24 ' N , 67 ° 37' E |
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| Flight duration: | 4d 23h 8min | ||
| Earth orbits: | 81 | ||
| Rotation time : | 88.27 min | ||
| Orbit inclination : | 64.97 ° | ||
| Apogee : | 209 km | ||
| Perigee : | 162 km | ||
| Covered track: | 3.33 million km | ||
| ◄ Before / After ► | |||
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Vostok 5 was a manned space flight of the Soviet Vostok program . A double flight was undertaken together with Vostok 6 . The cosmonaut Valeri Bykowski stayed in orbit for four days and set a new endurance record.
crew
- Valery Fyodorowitsch Bykowski (1st flight)
Substitute team
Support team
preparation
After the double flight of Vostok 3 and Vostok 4 in August 1962, it was not clear how many more Vostok flights would take place and how many of them would be manned by female cosmonauts. In spring 1963 it became clear that no new Vostok spaceships would be manufactured. The two remaining single-seat spaceships would be used for a double flight with a man and a woman.
On May 11 was Valery Bykovsky nominated as a pilot. He had previously been a substitute at Vostok 3 . Alexei Leonow and Boris Wolynow were assigned as replacement pilots .
Flight history
Vostok 5 took off on June 14, 1963 at 2:58 p.m. Moscow time from the Baikonur rocket launch site and after a few minutes reached Earth orbit with 130 km perigee and 131 km apogee at an inclination of 65 degrees. The flight altitude was lower than planned and was constantly decreasing due to atmospheric friction, so that the planned mission duration of eight days could not be achieved.
Due to problems with the life support system, the temperature in the cabin dropped from 30 ° C to 10 ° C during the mission.
Two days after Vostok 5, Vostok 6 took off with Valentina Tereschkowa on board, the first woman in space. The two spaceships approached each other within 3 miles, but then the distance increased. During the first time Bykowski and Tereschkowa were in direct radio contact, later relay stations on earth had to mediate.
The landing of Vostok 5 took place after five days at 2:06 p.m. Moscow time, 540 km northwest of Karaganda in what is now Kazakhstan .
Bykowski was catapulted out of the landing capsule with the ejector seat and landed on his own parachute . About a hundred local residents gathered around him and he was taken in a car to the landing capsule, which had fallen about two kilometers away. From there he made radio contact with the rescue aircraft.
meaning
The five-day flight from Vostok 5 marked a new world record. The Soviets were thus far ahead of the competing Americans, who a few weeks earlier had achieved a space flight of only 35 hours with Gordon Cooper on the Mercury-Atlas 9 mission , which was characterized by system failures towards the end.
Despite the landing problems, Vostok 5 and Vostok 6 formed a successful completion of the Vostok program. It had already been decided that the next manned flights would be carried out with a further development, the multi-seat Vozhod spacecraft . The Soyuz spacecraft , which was completely redesigned, would not be available for several years.
The return capsule is exhibited today in the Tsiolkovsky Museum in Kaluga .
Web links
- Sven Grahn: The flight of Vostok-5 and Vostok-6 as Observed in radio intercept (English)
- Wostok 5 at spacefacts.de
- Vostok 5 at space.kursknet.ru (English / Russian , archived 2016)
- Wostok 5 in the Encyclopedia Astronautica (English)
- Wostok 5 in the NSSDCA Master Catalog (English)
