Flight Crew
SHEPARD, Alan Bartlett Jr., 47, USN, commander, 2nd mission Previous mission: Mercury-Redstone 3 (1961)
ROOSA, Stuart Allen, 37, USAF, command module pilot MITCHELL, Edgar Dean, 40, USN, lunar module pilot
Flight Log
Apollo 14 was originally targeted for Taurus-Littrow but was diverted by the Apollo 13 abort to Fra Mauro. The mission was delayed for forty minutes by weather resembling the conditions for Apollo 12, and it surprised some observers to see the liftoff going ahead in very murky skies at 16: 03 hrs local time. The parking orbit was 186 km (116 miles) and 32.4° inclination. The all-rookie crew in terms of orbital space flight, with only commander Alan Shepard having any space flight experience (a mere sub-orbital lob in 1961), were placed on their trans-lunar coast with no difficulty. CMP Stuart Roosa closed in for the transposition and docking but couldn’t dock. A drama unfolded as Roosa tried six times, at last succeeding after 106 minutes. If the docking mechanism was faulty, the Moon landing would have to be cancelled. Once the Lunar Module Antares and Command Module Kitty Hawk were joined up, Shepard and his crew inspected the docking probe, but could not explain the earlier difficulty. NASA deliberated for a while before announcing that the Moon landing attempt would proceed.
Apollo 14 entered lunar orbit quietly, lowering its perilune to the lowest ever for the complete Apollo combination at just 16 km (10 miles). Manned by the steely-eyed Shepard and burly Edgar Mitchell, Antares separated and just before the PDI burn hit trouble. First, a short circuit in the LM computer abort switch meant the computer could not be persuaded not to abort the landing attempt. The crew just finished reprogramming themselves out of this problem when the landing radar failed. With an
|
A1 Shepard proudly displays the US flag, standing on the Moon almost a decade after becoming America’s first astronaut in space.
|
abort just seconds away, at which point the PDI could not bring them into the landing site, Mitchell’s desperate switch flicking succeeded. Shepard brought Antares on to Fra Mauro with 40 seconds of fuel left, some 26.5 m (87 ft) off target, and at a tilt angle of 6°, at 30°40’27" south 17°27’58" west.
On 5 February, Shepard set foot on the Moon at T + 114 hours 31 minutes and was joined by Mitchell. The television camera was pointed at the sloping LM, with the sun very low in the sky, and it was not possible to follow the crew all the time as they set to work laying out the ALSEP instruments and collecting samples using the Modular Equipment Transporter. This was a lunar “wheelbarrow”, which some of the less interested press reports suggested was to carry the aging Shepard when he got tired. The EVA lasted 4 hours 49 minutes and the second, on 6 February, lasted 4 hours 35 minutes and featured a thwarted and tetchy attempt to climb the 45 m (147.5 ft) high rim of Cone Crater. Although Shepard was convinced that they were nowhere near the rim and decided to abort the attempt, Mitchell had in fact been right in his assertion that they had nearly reached it. Shepard won the argument.
During the EVAs the crew had travelled about 2.72 km (2 miles) on foot, and at the end of the second EVA Shepard played his famous televised game of lunar golf, using a proper ball and a club made from the head of a 6-iron with an attachment to fit the handle of the contingency sample collector A passionate golfer, Shepard drew the ball out of his suit leg pocket and dropped it on the surface. Being limited in his mobility he sliced more lunar soil than ball in his first one handed “swing” barely moving the ball (something he was ribbed about back at the Astronaut Office after the mission). For the second attempt, a new ball was taken from the suit pocket and this time he hit it into a crater about 15 metres away. Not to be out done in this demonstration of lunar sports, Mitchell threw the staff from the solar wind composition experiment into the same crater. After 33 hours 39 minutes on the Moon, Antares lifted off and docked with Kitty Hawk, which itself leapt out of lunar orbit after a stay of 66 hours 39 minutes. The Command Module came home 6.4 km (4 miles) from the recovery ship USS New Orleans in the Pacific Ocean at 27° south 172° west at T + 9 days 0 hours 1 minutes 57 seconds – the most accurate splashdown, 600 m (1950 ft) from the predicted target. The crew was the last to have to endure the quarantine container.
Milestones
40th manned space flight
24th US manned space flight
8th Apollo manned space flight
8th Apollo CSM manned flight
6th Apollo LM manned flight
6th manned flight to the Moon
5th manned flight to orbit the Moon
3rd manned Moon landing and walk
1st wheeled vehicle on the Moon
9th US and 11th flight with EVA operations
Flight Crew
SHATALOV, Vladimir Aleksandrovich, 43, Soviet Air Force, commander,
3rd mission
Previous missions: Soyuz 4 (1969); Soyuz 8 (1969)
YELISEYEV, Aleksey Stanislavovich, 36, civilian, flight engineer, 3rd mission Previous missions: Soyuz 5 (1969); Soyuz 8 (1969)
RUKAVISHNIKOV, Nikolay, Nikolayevich, 38, civilian, test engineer
Flight Log
On 19 April, the Soviets finally succeeded in placing a space station into orbit; the 18,900 kg (41,675 lb) Salyut. Originally to be called Zarya (“Dawn”), the name was changed when it was revealed that the Chinese had used the same name for one oftheir satellites. Salyut was chosen as a “salute” to the 10th anniversary of Gagarin’s mission, but it was too late to repaint the side of the station, which still bore the named “Zarya”. The first attempt at launching a crew to the station on 22 April was aborted at T — 1 minute when one of the launch masts failed to retract. Three, three- person crews were prepared for resident stays on the station (known as EO in Russian), aimed at stealing some of the headlines from the Apollo lunar missions and in creating a the world’s first station in space two years before America launched their Skylab workshop. However, just two days later all these plans seemed to be in doubt. Soyuz 10, crewed by Shatalov and Yeliseyev, the first Russians to make three space flights, plus new man Nikolay Rukavishnikov, took off on 23 April at 04: 54 hrs local time and entered an orbit with an inclination of 51.6° and an apogee of 256 km (159 miles). About a day later, the rendezvous sequence – which also involved manoeuvres by Salyut 1 – ended with Soyuz 10 about 180 m (590 ft) away.
Shatalov jockeyed Soyuz (DOS-1) towards Salyut, and at 06: 47 hrs Baikonur time docked with the space station. A 20- to 30-day stay aboard was in the offing and all seemed fine. The crew, however, never went on board. Shatalov had successfully soft-docked to Salyut but could not hard dock. With a 9 cm gap between them,
|
Shatalov, Yeliseyev and Rukavishnikov exit a Soyuz Volga simulator after a training session prior to their Soyuz 10 mission to Salyut
|
Shatalov tried firing the manoeuvring engines on Soyuz to push the spacecraft together, but to no avail. After six hours (four orbits), Shatalov was ordered to undock and try again. When he tried to do so, he found his Soyuz would not release from the Salyut, indicating a serious problem. The crew could have entered the OM and dismantled the docking device from the Soyuz side or jettisoned the OM, but either option would have rendered the single-ported Salyut useless for further operations. With onboard power supplies running out on the Soyuz (it would have been powered down during the occupation of the Salyut), Shatalov tried again and this time Soyuz slipped from her moorings, much to the relief of ground controllers and the crew. Other missions would be able to visit the Salyut. At 12: 17hrs Baikonur time, Soyuz 10 undocked and left Salyut uninhabited. The manned spacecraft flew in formation with Salyut for about 5 hours 30 minutes before making an emergency landing, at night for the first time and narrowly missing becoming the first Soviet splashdown missing a lake by a mere 50 metres, at T + 1 day 23 hours 45 minutes 54 seconds. It was left to Soyuz 11 to check in at the “space hotel”.
On 10 May, the investigation team reported their findings. With the docking system lost in the re-entry of the OM, examination of flight hardware was impossible,
but interpreting the data revealed that following the soft docking, the thrusters on Soyuz continued to fire for 30 seconds, causing a violent swing with a force equal to 160-200 kg on the docking mechanism shock absorbers. Ground tests found that the system could accept no more than 130 kg (60 per cent beyond design limits). This seemed to have buckled the docking system preventing the hard docking of the capture latches. Recommendations included strengthening the shock absorbers to twice the upper limit (260 kg) and additional controls for the commander to manually retract the probe.
Milestones
41st manned space flight
17th Soviet manned space flight
9th Soyuz manned space flight
1st Soyuz space ferry flight
1st manned space flight to land at night
1st manned space flight to be launched and to land at night
Flight Crew
DOBROVOLSKY, Georgy Timofeyevich, 43, Soviet Air Force, commander VOLKOV, Vladislav Nikolayevich, 35, civilian, flight engineer, 2nd mission Previous mission: Soyuz 7 (1969)
PATSAYEV, Viktor Ivanovich, 38, civilian, test engineer
Flight Log
The Soyuz 11 prime crew comprised Aleksey Leonov, Valery Kubasov and rookie Pyotr Kolodin. A week before the launch a spot was discovered on Kubasov’s lung and it was decided to replace the whole crew with their back-ups, Georgy Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkov and Viktor Patsayev, who took to the skies above Baikonur at 09: 55 hrs. At 12: 24 hrs the following day, the rendezvous was completed, and at a distance of about 150 m (492 ft), Dobrovolsky moved Soyuz 11 at about 0.9m/sec (3ft/sec) towards the docking port of Salyut 1. Would Soyuz 11 get a hard dock? Soyuz slowed to 0.3m/sec (1ft/sec) 60 m (196 ft) away and soft docking was completed at 12: 49 hrs, with hard docking made at 12: 55 hrs. The hatch was opened and the crew checked in at what Western press termed a “space hotel’’ for an expected six-week stay. The Soviets, however, had decided not to mount a 30-day flight but one of no more than 25 days. After surpassing the Soyuz 9 record of 18 days by the required ten per cent, they ended their mission on the 23rd day.
Manoeuvres on Salyut placed it at a maximum altitude of 282 km (175 miles) in the 51° orbit. The Soviets boasted that the size of the Soyuz/Salyut complex was 20.11 m (66 ft) long with workspace of 99.05 m3 (3,500 ft3) but at about 25 tonnes, it was far less than the combined Apollo modules. The crew conducted a highly successful mission, using telescopes to observe the stars, monitoring the weather, taking remote sensing photographs of the Earth, growing crops (including flax), hatching frogs’ eggs, studying the atmosphere, conducting genetic experiments on fruit flies, using elasticated “Penguin” suits for exercising, and carrying out intensive biomedical work. On the surface Soyuz 11 was becoming the most successful mission
|
The ill-fated Soyuz 11 crew inside a Soyuz DM during training. From left, Dobrovolsky, Patsayev, Volkov
|
in Soviet history with TV pictures showing them clearly enjoying themselves, but there were moments of tension aboard the station. Personality clashes, probably due to the lack of previous flight experience for such a challenging mission (only Volkov had flown before), and their abbreviated training to make the flight they should only have supported, were contributing factors. The fear of an onboard fire on 16 June was triggered by the strong odour of smoke. Evacuating the station for Soyuz in case they had to make an emergency return to Earth, the atmosphere of Salyut was tested and found safe, with the crew returning to the station. The crew were also reluctant to follow their exercise programme, which was intended to maintain their physical condition to make the readaptation to gravity (and the stress of re-entry) much easier.
At 23: 15hrs Baikonur time on 29 June, the cosmonauts were back inside Soyuz 11, wearing their woollen flight suits and flight helmets. During preparation for undocking, a “hatch open” light indicated that the hatch between the DM and the OM was not sealed properly. Recycling the switch extinguished the light and the undocking was completed. Soyuz 11 undocked from Salyut thirteen minutes later, and retro-fire was completed at 03: 35 hrs Baikonur time on 30 June. As programmed, the Soyuz separated into three parts: the Service Module, Descent Module and Orbital Module, to allow the Descent Module to continue its stable re-entry path. As this occurred, a pressure equalisation valve opened prematurely in the Descent Module and the crew’s life-giving air began to be sucked into the vacuum of space. Patsayev and Dobrovolsky apparently tried to hand operate a pump to retain the cabin atmosphere but the crew succumbed to asphyxia. Soyuz 11, meanwhile, continued down automatically, landing safely at 04: 17 hrs Baikonur time, just before sunrise, at T + 23 days 18 hours 21 minutes 43 seconds, the longest mission by far. Rescue teams rushed to the capsule to greet the crew but found three bodies slumped in their seats, as if sleeping peacefully. The Soviet space programme was grounded and one decision made immediately: to equip future Soviet cosmonauts with the obvious uniform – a spacesuit. Nine days after the loss of the Soyuz 11 cosmonauts, all crews assigned to Salyut were stood down. In October, the station re-entered the atmosphere, breaking up in a fiery descent.
Milestones
42nd manned space flight
18th Soviet manned space flight
10th Soyuz manned space flight
1st manned occupation of a space station
New duration record of 23 days 18 hours
1st birthday celebrated in space – (Patsayev’s 38th on 19 June)
1st crew to die during entry phase
Flight Crew
SCOTT, David Randolph, 39, USAF, commander, 3rd mission Previous missions: Gemini 8 (1966); Apollo 9 (1969)
WORDEN, Alfred Merrill, 39, USAF, command module pilot IRWIN, James Benson, 41, USAF, lunar module pilot
Flight Log
A picture-perfect lift-off at 09: 34hrs began what was described by NASA as “the most complex and carefully planned scientific expedition in the history of exploration.” From its 173 km (108 miles), 32.5° parking orbit, Apollo 15’s S-IVB achieved not only TLI but also insertion into the required hybrid trajectory to the Moon. This was accompanied by three concerns: a potentially serious short-circuit in the SPS, which required a short test burst to ensure everything was functioning properly; a broken instrument cover in the Lunar Module which showered the interior with pieces of glass; and a leaking water pipe. These combined to cause a certain amount of tetchiness in the commander, Dave Scott.
After lunar orbit insertion, eventually lowered by 92.8 km (58 miles) to 12.8 km (8 miles), Command Module Endeavour separated from Lunar Module Falcon, and the great expedition reached the high point, with a steep 26° descent over the Appenine Mountains to a landing site close to the spectacular Hadley Rille. After poking his head out of the top of Falcon’s docking port for a unique lunar stand-up EVA, Scott, playing the explorer part to perfection, set foot on Hadley Base on 31 July. He and his LMP, Jim Irwin, pulled the first lunar roving vehicle from the side of Falcon, and with the aid of lanyards, the rover unfurled. Soon the two crewmen were taking television viewers for spectacular rides to the edge of Hadley Rille, the TV camera on the rover being controlled by an engineer on the ground.
|
View of the Apollo 15 Hadley-Appenine landing area showing Hadley Rille
|
Three moonwalks (31 July, 1 and 2 August, lasting 6 hours 14 minutes, 6 hours 55 minutes and 4 hours 27 minutes respectively) and drives featured the deployment of the ALSEP array of instruments, drilling core samples up to 3 m (10 ft) deep, travelling a total of 27 km (17 miles) around the Moon and collecting 79 kg (174 lb) of lunar samples. The astronauts provided excellent descriptions of the surface geology and photographic documentation of the area. Towards the end of the final surface EVA, Scott proved the theory of Italian scientist, inventor and astronomer, Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) by dropping a hammer and a falcon feather. They fell and hit the surface at the same time in the one-sixth gravity and vacuum environment of the Moon, just as Galileo had predicted they would. Re-parking the Rover for the TV camera to record the lunar lift-off, Scott placed a plaque in the soil together with a statue of a “fallen astronaut”. On the plaque were the names of eight astronauts and six cosmonauts (known at that time) who had died in while on active status.
With a spectacular finale seen live on television via the camera on the rover, after 66 hours 55 minutes on the Moon, with 17 hours 36 minutes of the period on the surface, Scott and Irwin lifted off in Falcon in a shower of multicoloured sparks. After docking with Endeavour, another Apollo 15 first was the deployment of the Particles
and Fields Sub-satellite into lunar orbit, from the SIM bay on the side of the Service Module. This was packed with 16 scientific experiments, which kept CMP Al Worden busy operating while his colleagues were on the surface.
Endeavour broke out of lunar orbit after 74 orbits in 6 days 1 hour 18 minutes and sailed for home. During this return journey, Worden performed the first trans-Earth EVA, lasting 34 minutes, 318,400 km (197,854 miles) from Earth, retrieving experiments and samples from the side of the Service Module. Endeavour splashed down close to USS Okinawa at T + 12 days 7 hours 11 minutes 53 seconds, but at a speed of 33.6 kph (21mph) rather than the planned 30.4 kph (19mph), because one of the spacecraft’s three parachutes failed to deploy. Apollo 15 was undoubtedly the maximum that human effort has achieved in exploration, though by some it is still rather sadly remembered more for the unauthorised commemorative first day covers carried during the mission than the science return or achievements by a hard working and dedicated crew.
Milestones
43rd manned space flight 25th US manned space flight 9th Apollo manned space flight 9th Apollo CSM manned flight 7th Apollo LM manned flight 7th manned flight to the Moon 6th manned flight to orbit the Moon 4th manned lunar landing and walk 1st two-day lunar stay 1st motorised vehicle on the Moon
1st manned mission with four EVAs and three moonwalks 1st manned space flight to deploy active sub-satellite 1st manned mission featuring trans-Earth spacewalk 1st televised lift-off from the Moon 10th US and 12th flight with EVA operations
Flight Crew
YOUNG, John Watts, 41, USN, commander, 4th mission Previous missions: Gemini 3 (1965); Gemini 10 (1966); Apollo 10 (1969) MATTINGLY, Thomas Kenneth II, 36, USN, command module pilot DUKE, Charles Moss Jr., 36, USAF, lunar module pilot
Flight Log
Apollo 16 lifted off from KSC at 12: 54 hrs local time and the public only pricked up their ears when Apollo 16 was in lunar orbit and the crew in the LM. Orion’s landing was delayed because the back-up yaw gimbal servo loop on the CM Casper SPS engine failed and had to be restored before the CM – in 109 km by 19 km (68 miles by 12 miles) DOI orbit – could move into a high orbit with the assurance that the engine was workable for the rest of the mission. Given the go for landing after a frustrating and worrying 5 hours 43 minutes, astronauts John Young and Charlie Duke, piloting the heaviest Lunar Module to land on the Moon, came into Descartes Base like gangbusters.
Their high-spirited antics on the Moon later delighted the public at a time when walking on the Moon no longer attracted leading headlines. Frustratingly, Young, with his peripheral vision limited in the suit and unaware that his foot was snagged around a power cable, ruined a heat flow experiment by pulling the cable out of the instrument. The enthusiastic duo made three successful EVAs around their 8°69" south 15°30" east landing site, driving for 26 km (16 miles) and collecting 96.61 kg (218 lb) of moonrock. Young also drove the lunar rover at a record speed of 18 kph (11 mph) in a “lunar grand prix’’ demonstration of its ability in one-sixth gravity vacuum conditions. The moonwalks on 20-22 April lasted 7 hours 11 minutes, 7 hours 23 minutes and 5 hours 40 minutes. The third had been curtailed due to the late landing, but they had visited one of the largest boulders found on the Moon, which was dubbed “House Rock’’. In saluting the flag, Young leaped off the surface for the
|
Duke walks past the LRV during the first EVA of Apollo 16
|
cameras. When Duke tried to do this as well, out of the view of the camera, he forgot the mass of his backpack and came crashing down on his back on the surface, receiving a typically dry rebuke from Young. After the 20 hours of EVA and 71 hours 2 minutes on the Moon, Orion took off, again watched live on TV, to dock with Mattingly, who had flown the longest manned solo spaceflight of 81 hours 40 minutes. Another sub-satellite was deployed, and after 64 orbits in 125 hours 53 minutes, Casper lit its engine, one day earlier than planned, and headed home. En route, Mattingly made a 1 hour 24 minute EVA, before Casper landed about 2 km (1 mile) from USS Ticonderoga at T + 11 days 1 hr 51 minutes 25 seconds. They were on deck in 37 minutes, another record.
Milestones
44th manned space flight
26th US manned space flight
10th Apollo manned space flight
10th Apollo manned CSM flight
8th Apollo manned LM flight
2nd LRV operations
8th manned flight to the Moon
7th manned flight into lunar orbit
5th manned lunar landing and walk
11th US and 13th flight with EVA operations
2nd flight with trans-Earth EVA
Flight Crew
CERNAN, Eugene Andrew, 38, USN, commander, 3rd mission Previous missions: Gemini 9 (1966); Apollo 10 (1969)
EVANS, Ronald Ellwin, 39, USN, command module pilot SCHMITT, Harrison Hagen “Jack”, 37, civilian, lunar module pilot
Flight Log
Because Apollo 17 became the final Moon landing mission as a result of budget cuts, LMP Joe Engle was dropped and replaced by the only mission trained geologist in the astronaut corps, Jack Schmitt, who had been down to fly Apollo 18. A computer malfunction delayed the first night launch in the US space programme by 2 hours 40 minutes to 12: 33hrs local time, when the Saturn V turned night into day amid a cataclysmic blast-off. Earth parking orbit was 178 km (111 miles) apogee, 32.5° and the lunar orbital DOI parameters were 25 km by 109 km (16 miles by 68 miles). A safe journey moonwards ended with Lunar Module Challenger making a perfect landing at the Taurus-Littrow landing site, at 20°10” north 30°45" east, with two minutes of fuel left.
A broken fender on the lunar rover made driving rather difficult, since it churned up piles of tacky moondust. The fender was ingeniously mended in situ and the rover featured in three highly successful moonwalks, highlighted by geologist Schmitt discovering orange soil. For a time, he and scientists on the ground believed, mistakenly, that this may have indicated recent volcanic activity and water on the Moon. TV pictures were spectacular and lunar surface activity ended with some ceremonial speeches by Cernan, marking the last steps on the Moon in the twentieth century.
Apollo 17 clocked up many firsts on the Moon – the longest EVA at 7 hours 37 minutes; longest EVA activity at 22 hours 5 minutes; longest distance travelled with the lunar rover at 33 km (21 miles); most samples collected during EVA 2; and furthest travelled from the LM at 7.3 km (5 miles), also during EVA 2. The times of EVAs 1
|
The Apollo lunar programme comes to an end as Apollo 17 spashes down
|
and 3 were 7 hours 12 minutes and 7 hours 16 minutes. Challenger lifted off and docked with Command Module America, which remained in lunar orbit for a record 147 hours 48 minutes. CMP Ron Evans made the customary trans-Earth EVA lasting 1 hour 6 minutes and the Apollo programme ended with a splashdown at T + 12 days 13 hours 51 minutes 59 seconds, near USS Ticonderoga, of the heaviest Command Module on landing. Another 110.22 kg (68 lb) of the Moon was on the Earth.
Milestones
45th manned space flight
27th US manned space flight
11th Apollo manned space flight
11th Apollo CSM manned flight
9th Apollo LM manned flight
9th manned flight to the Moon
8th manned flight into lunar orbit
6th manned lunar landing and walk
1st manned spacecraft to spend three days on the Moon
12th US and 14th flight with EVA operations
3rd flight with trans-Earth EVA
Flight Crew
CONRAD, Charles “Pete” Jr., 42, USN, commander, 4th mission Previous missions: Gemini 5 (1965); Gemini 11 (1966); Apollo 12 (1969) KERWIN, Joseph Peter, 41, USN, science pilot WEITZ, Paul Joseph, 40, USN, pilot
Flight Log
Early in the Apollo programme, when it became obvious to NASA that funding for a large space station to follow the Moon landings was unlikely to be forthcoming before the landing on the Moon had been achieved, the agency came up with an ingenious plan of using leftover Apollo hardware to build a smaller space station. The programme became known as the Apollo Applications Program, then in 1970, Skylab. By then it was clear that the agency could only support one Skylab space station with little prospect of the larger, 50-man space stations suggested only a few years before. The core space station, later named Skylab 1, was basically an empty S-IVB Saturn V third stage, internally converted on the ground into a manned orbital workshop. It was equipped with two large solar panels, a multiple docking adaptor, airlock and the Apollo Solar Telescope Mount (originally a modified LM), and equipped with four solar panels. The station would be launched unmanned and would house three, three- person crews for missions lasting 28, 56 and 56 days respectively. Inside and outside the 368 m3 (13,000 ft3) space station, these crews were to conduct the most detailed science programme ever attempted: 270 experiments in life sciences, solar physics, Earth observation, astrophysics, materials processing, engineering and technology.
The first step was to get Skylab 1 into orbit. The final two-stage Saturn V, AS-513 , carried the 74,796 kg (164,925 lb) Skylab into space, but en route its micrometeoroid thermal shield was torn loose, together with one solar panel. Even worse, the other solar panel failed to deploy. Skylab (1973-027A) was the heaviest object in space but a useless one. Skylab 2, the manned flight of an Apollo Command and Service Module, launched on a Saturn 1B, was to have followed on 15 May, the day after Skylab 1, but
|
The Skylab Orbital Workshop in orbit, showing its one remaining solar panel and the parasol sunshield
|
was delayed until 25 May so that salvage procedures and tools could be devised. Equipment was being packed into Skylab 2 two hours before its launch at 09:05 hrs local time, from a uniquely configured Pad 39B, with a pedestal making the Saturn 1B tall enough to use some of the same pad and tower facilities as a Saturn 5.
The ebullient Conrad made a rendezvous with the crippled Skylab. The first salvage attempt was carried out by Paul Weitz, who stood on his seat in the Command Module, with science pilot Joe Kerwin desperately hanging on to his ankles. Weitz
tried to pull the jammed solar panel free using a hooked pole, during a 37 minute stand-up EVA. This failed, then Skylab 2 failed to dock with the station. Finally, after eight attempts in two hours, Skylab 1 and 2 became one. The crew made Skylab, orbiting at 50°, 442 km (275 miles) apogee, habitable within four days by poking a parasol sun shield out of a small instrument airlock. On the twelfth day of the mission, 7 June, Conrad and Kerwin made the bravest and most hazardous EVA in history, lasting 3 hours 30 minutes. Using wirecutters, Conrad manually pulled out the errant solar panel, saving the mission and the whole programme.
The remarkable Skylab 2 mission lasted a total of 28 days 0 hours 49 minutes 49 seconds, during which time the astronauts completed 46 of the planed 55 experiments, working on them for 392 hours. Each astronaut performed one EVA, Weitz and Conrad having been outside on 19 June for 1 hr 44 minutes. Their exercise routine and lifestyle aboard enabled them to return to Earth feeling remarkably well, on board the recovery ship, USS Ticonderoga.
Milestones
46th manned space flight
28th US manned space flight
12th Apollo CSM manned space flight
1st US space station mission
New duration record – 28 days 0 hours
1st spacecraft salvage and repair mission
13th US and 15th flight with EVA operations
Conrad celebrates his 43rd birthday in space (2 June)
Flight Crew
BEAN, Alan LaVern, 41, USN, commander, 2nd mission Previous mission: Apollo 12 (1969)
GARRIOTT, Owen Kay, 42, civilian, science pilot LOUSMA, Jack Robert, 37, USMC, pilot
Flight Log
Skylab 3 was pressed into service earlier than planned because of worries about the integrity of the project, particularly its thermal protection qualities. It was launched at 07: 11 hrs local time with the three astronauts, equipment and two spiders, Anita and Arabella, aboard. Docking was flawless and within hours the three crewmen Al Bean, Jack Lousma and Owen Garriott were floating inside the space station, 442 km (275 miles) up at an inclination of 50°. Space adaptation syndrome, or space sickness, hit them, particularly Lousma, and impaired their early activities.
When an RCS thruster quad on the Service Module of Skylab 3 was seen leaking and another quad showed signs of doing so, NASA put an emergency plan into action should the spacecraft be disabled. They would launch Skylab Rescue 1, with astronauts Vance Brand and Don Lind, to dock with the other port on Skylab and bring the three crew home, crammed together in the Command Module of the rescue vehicle. In the end, Brand and Lind’s unique maiden space flight was not required.
The Skylab 3 crew endeared themselves to the ground, operating without histrionics and highly effectively. Bean and Lousma tested a prototype of a manned manoeuvring unit inside Skylab (as did an untrained Garriott, demonstrating how easy it was to “fly”) and all three went for spacewalks to retrieve, observe and repair. On 6 August, Garriott and Lousma were outside for 6 hours 29 minutes, and on 24 August for 4 hours 30 minutes, while on 22 September Bean and Garriott made a 2 hour 45 minute EVA. They deployed two new parasols, and replaced gyros and nine other pieces of equipment.
|
This Apollo spacecraft carried the Skylab 3 crew, and two spiders, up to the station
|
Mission goals were exceeded by 50 per cent, with 305 man hours out of the total 1,081 hours of experimentation being spent on the Apollo Telescope Mount performing solar observations. The spiders spun webs in zero gravity. Altogether it was a rewarding flight, which ended at T + 59 days 11 hours 9 minutes 4 seconds, near the USS New Orleans, southwest of San Diego.
Milestones
47th manned space flight
29th US manned space flight
13th Apollo CSM manned space flight
1st manned space station re-occupation mission
1st manned space flight to exceed 50 days
New duration record – 59 days 11 hours
14th US and 16th flight with EVA operations
Flight Crew
LAZAREV, Vasily Grigoryevich, 45, Soviet Air Force, commander MAKAROV, Oleg Grigoryevich, 40, civilian, flight engineer
Flight Log
After the Salyut 1/Soyuz 11 disaster, the Soviets redesigned the Soyuz vehicle and attempted to launch new Salyuts without much success. A new Soyuz ferry was designed to carry just two crewmen, not three, this time wearing the obviously necessary pressure suits, with additional life support systems. Another innovation was the removal of solar panels and the reliance on batteries to sustain the craft during a two-day independent flight and rendezvous and docking with a Salyut.
Cosmos 496 was a test flight of this new Soyuz ferry vehicle in June 1972 and the first manned space flights to a new Salyut 2 were readied, only for the intended Salyut 2 (DOS-2) to fail to orbit in July that year. A military version of a Salyut (Almaz-1), also called Salyut 2 (1973-017A), actually got into orbit in April 1973, only to break apart and decay. Then the following month the third attempted Salyut, which could have been called Salyut 3 (DOS-3), became Cosmos 557 (1973-026A) when it, too, failed. The Soyuz ferry was tested again as Cosmos 573 in June 1973.
Without a Salyut to fly to, the Soviets decided to fly the ferry vehicle anyway, as Soyuz 12, crewed by Vasily Lazarev and Oleg Makarov, who were originally to have stayed aboard a Salyut. Their two-day flight (restricted to prevent low battery power making it impossible to attempt a re-entry) was announced as such beforehand to prevent western news reports of a Soviet manned flight meeting a “premature” end. Launch from Baikonur at 17: 18 hrs was followed by orbital manoeuvres in the 51° orbit, mimicking those that would have been made to reach a Salyut. Maximum altitude attained was 344 km (214 miles). Lazarev and Makarov were hardly stretched and Earth resources photography seemed the high point. The capsule landed about 396 km (246 miles) south west of Karaganda after a flight lasting only 1 day 23 hours
|
Makarov (left) and Lazarev discuss their preparations for their upcoming mission with Georgi Beregovoy
|
15 minutes 32 seconds. But at least the Soviets had launched men into space again, for the first time in 27 months, re-qualifying Soyuz for further operational use.
Milestones
48th manned space flight
19th Soviet manned space flight
11th Soyuz manned space flight
1st Soviet announcement of planned mission duration
Flight Crew
CARR, Gerald Paul, 41, USMC, commander GIBSON, Edward George, 37, civilian, science pilot POGUE, William Reid, 43, USAF, pilot
Flight Log
This open-ended mission was extended from 56 to 84 days to make the best of the final mission to the station. The launch of Skylab 4 was also delayed for ten days because hairline cracks were found in the tail fins of the Saturn 1B booster, built in 1964. The delay was convenient in that it gave the astronauts an opportunity to observe Comet Kohoutek when it was at its “best”. The comet, heralded as the Comet of the Century by some astronomers, proved to be an anticlimax. The first all-rookie American crew since Gemini 8 took off at 09: 01hrs into extremely clear skies and headed for a rendezvous with Skylab, in its 50°, 442 km (275 miles) orbit. Gerry Carr, Ed Gibson and Bill Pogue docked at the second attempt but before Pogue had time to enter Skylab, he vomited into a sick bag, which the crew dumped “secretly” into the space station’s garbage storage system.
Data storage tapes recorded their conversations and when these were played back to the ground, it caused much ill feeling. The commander, Carr, apologised for his error and the crew got down to work, but not without elements of complaint, giving them the erroneous reputation of being almost mutinous. This resulted from totally frank and private comments they were invited to make about the Skylab systems and work regime by ground control being made known to some press, who unfairly labelled the crew as particularly difficult. They did insist on a reduced workload at one point early in the mission when they thought they needed a rest. This prompted the media to label them the first crew to “strike” in space, which again was not totally correct.
However, Skylab 4 was a very impressive mission – America’s longest to date and for some time afterwards at 84 days. The crew conducted 56 experiments, 26 science
|
The Skylab 4 crew after recovery. (L to r) Gibson, Pogue and Carr
|
demonstrations, and studied the sun for 338 hours. They photographed and observed the elusive Comet Kohoutek during one of several spacewalks, on Christmas Day 1973, which gave Carr, with 15 hours 18 minutes, the most EVA experience on Skylab. Gibson and Pogue made a 6 hour 33 minute EVA on 22 November; Carr and Pogue’s Christmas excursion lasted 7 hours 1 minute; Carr and Gibson went outside on 29 December for 3 hours 28 minutes; and again on 3 February for 5 hours 19 minutes.
Skylab was abandoned and Carr made a manual re-entry after noticing a misalignment of the Command Module, splashing down near USS New Orleans, the first US crew not to come home watched by live television. Their mission of 84 days 1 hour 15 minutes 31 seconds remained America’s longest until the flight of Norman Thagard aboard the Russian Mir station in 1995 – some 21 years later. Plans for Skylab 5 were abandoned, as were the hopes of flying a Skylab В workshop in 1976. For some years, it was hoped that a Shuttle might have visited the station in the late 1970s, but an increase in solar activity increased the atmospheric drag on the station, and delays in the Shuttle programme meant this plan was not practical. Skylab made an ignominious exit from the scene, making a spectacular re-entry during orbit 34,981 over Australia in 1979, with some of its debris surviving re-entry. The debris footprint was about 65 km x 3,860 km, with debris found east and north west of the town of Perth, and the largest piece being 82 kg of aluminium – thought to be the door of one of the film vaults.
Milestones
49th manned space flight
30th US manned space flight
14th Apollo CSM manned space flight
New duration record – 84 days 1 hour
15th US and 17th flight with EVA operations
Pogue celebrates his 44th birthday in space (23 January)
Flight Crew
KLIMUK, Pyotr Illich, 31, Soviet Air Force, commander LEBEDEV, Valentin Vitalyevich, 31, civilian, flight engineer
Flight Log
The first Soviet manned space flight dedicated to science, Soyuz 13, uniquely configured with an array of Orion 2 celestial telescopes at the front of the Orbital Module in place of a docking system, was launched at 16: 35hrs local time into a 51° orbit, which would have a maximum altitude of 256 km (159 miles). The Orion telescope mount and the Oasis 2 protein manufacturing unit on board Soyuz 13 should have been flown on a Salyut. Comet Kohoutek’s appearance may also have been irresistible. This and the recent decision to dock a Soyuz with an American Apollo in 1975, seemed the raison d’etre for flying an independent mission of what was, essentially, a Soyuz 10/11-type spacecraft on a useful mission to bolster US confidence in the Soyuz. However, it was the loss of the Salyut that initiated the Soviet decision to fly the solo Soyuz, rather than demonstrating their ability to the Americans after the Soyuz 11 tragedy. A Soyuz was specially built for the mission. The original prime crew consisted of Commander Lev Vorobyov and Flight Engineer Valeri Yazdovsky, with back-ups Pyotr Klimuk and Vitaly Sevastyanov (who was soon replaced when medical problems affected his flying status). An all-rookie team prepared for the mission, with Valentin Lebedev replacing Sevastyanov. However, just three or four days before launch, the prime crew were deemed incompatible for working together in space and were replaced by the back-ups. They flew the mission without a new backup team assigned. This caused bitterness, as both original crewmembers were very principled men, often speaking their mind and making “enemies’’ of the very people who selected crews to fly, resulting in their removal so close to the launch date.
The young Soyuz 13 crew, Pyotr Klimuk and Valentin Lebedev, joined the Skylab 4 crew in space, on the first occasion that US and Soviets were in orbit together
|
Inside the cramped Soyuz 13 module, Klimuk (left) and Lebedev pose for one of the few on – orbit images taken and released in connection with the astrophysical solo Soyuz mission
|
– although they did not rendezvous or communicate with each other. The Orion 2 took interesting ultraviolet images of planetary nebulae close to the star Capella, down to a stellar magnitude of 13. The closed-loop Oasis system bred two types of bacteria in a test of the practicalities of food production in space colonies.
For the first time, the Soviets announced that a mission was at its half-way stage, but did not announce its end at T + 7 days 20 hours 55 minutes 35 seconds, 198 km (123 miles) southwest of Karaganda until an hour after space monitor Geoffrey Perry of the Kettering Grammar School’s remarkable team.
Milestones
50th manned space flight 20th Soviet manned space flight 12th Soyuz manned space flight
1st time both US and Soviet spacemen in orbit at the same time
Flight Crew
POPOVICH, Pavel Romanovich, 43, Soviet Air Force, commander, 2nd mission Previous mission: Vostok 4 (1962)
ARTYUKHIN, Yuri Petrovich, 44, Soviet Air Force, flight engineer
Flight Log
On 24 June 1974, the replacement for the first Almaz military space station (designated Salyut 2 to mask its real purpose and which was never manned because it tumbled out of orbit in 1973), was launched by a Proton from Baikonur. As with Salyut 2, transmissions from the Salyut 3 (Almaz-2) space station as it manoeuvred itself into the operating orbit were on a military frequency, the first indications that manned military space operations were to follow. This seemed to be confirmed when Soyuz 14 was launched into orbit at 23: 51 hrs local time from Baikonur, into a 51° orbit which would attain a maximum altitude of 273 km (170 miles).
On board were Vostok veteran Pavel Popovich, a blast from the past indeed, and military flight engineer, Lt-Col. Yuri Artyukhin. A day and two hours after launch, Popovich had docked at the rear port of the station, which had a recoverable capsule at its front. Salyut 3’s main instrument appears to have been a 10 m (33 ft) focal length reconnaissance telescope. According to the many reports about the regime of the crew, Popovich and Artyukhin worked to a strict eight hourly routine: work for eight hours, relaxation and exercise, then sleep. They used special elasticated exercise suits, called Atlet and Penguin, harnessed to a treadmill to maintain their cardiovascular condition.
The crew’s announced schedule of activities focused on medical experiments but it is clear that they were much busier conducting classified reconnaissance work. Equipment used included the Polimnon-2M, Rezeda-5, Levkoi-3 and Amak-3 medical units. There was a scare when a massive solar storm sent a worrying amount of radiation towards Salyut, threatening to abort the mission, whose planned 14 day duration was
|
Popovich (left) and Artyukhin wearing Sokol suits during a break in training
|
confirmed by the Soviets when they announced that it was at its half-way point. Soyuz 14 landed south east of Dzhezkazgan at T + 15 days 14 hours 30 minutes 28 seconds. Salyut 3, its recoverable capsule still attached, remained to receive another manned crew. The military nature of Soyuz 14 overshadowed the fact that it was the Soviets’ first successful space station mission.
Milestones
51st manned space flight
21st Soviet manned space flight
13th Soyuz manned space flight
1st dedicated manned military space flight
Flight Crew
SARAFANOV, Gennady Vasilyevich, 32, Soviet Air Force, commander DEMIN, Lev, 48, Soviet Air Force, flight engineer
Flight Log
The second manned occupation of Salyut 3 was to be made by Soyuz 15, which made a routine exit from Baikonur at 00: 58 hrs on 26 August. Docking was scheduled to be made on the sixteenth orbit about a day later. However, Soyuz 15 approached Salyut far too quickly, closing in at a speed of about 10m/sec (33 ft/sec) due to excessive and uncontrollable burns, from a distance of about 48 m (157 ft) during what was planned to be a manual approach and docking. As a result it missed the station, and by the time docking was to have been achieved, Soyuz 15 was 112 km (70 miles) ahead of Salyut. The crew reported that the spacecraft’s manoeuvring controls were operating in reverse, thus braking firings led to an increase in velocity and vice versa.
The automatic rendezvous system Igla failed, though this was not immediately acknowledged by engineers from NPO Energiya, who pushed the blame on to the crew. For some time there were suggestions that the failure was due to human error, although the cosmonauts reportedly made some attempt to re-establish a compatible orbit and approach though it is not clear whether they attempted manual docking. Indeed, the youthful Gennady Sarafanov and the elderly Lev Demin, at 48 the oldest man in space at that time, never made another flight. The battery power and propellant levels on the spacecraft approached the limits of the mission and the flight had to be abandoned with an emergency retro-fire out of its maximum altitude 236 km (147 miles), 5° inclination orbit, and a night landing 48 km (30 miles) southwest of Tselininograd at T + 2 days 0 hours 12 minutes 11 seconds.
The Soviets, presumably mindful of their responsibilities with the Soyuz-Apollo link planned for the following year, attempted to write off the Soyuz 15 mission as a unique manned test of an unmanned re-supply vessel, a test of a totally automatic docking which would have ended with the crew coming home after two days anyway.
|
Soyuz 15 prime crew, left Sarafanov, right Demin
|
It was even claimed that the night landing was a deliberate plan, too! As it turned out, the flight of Soyuz 15 would be far from unique. In 1999, it was finally revealed that the Igla system had failed and was issuing false commands to the orientation and manoeuvring system. Thus, when Soyuz 15 was only 350 metres from Salyut, Igla “thought” it was 20 km away and initiated a long range engine burn. Despite evidence to the contrary, the inexperience of the crew did not help their case and they were tarnished with an official reprimand, even though it was not their fault. Salyut 3 could have supported another crew but there were no Soyuz vehicles ready for a launch and on 23 September, its programme was completed with the recovery of a small capsule containing exposed film. On 24 January 1975, less than a month after Salyut 4 was safely in orbit and with a crew aboard, Salyut 3 was commanded to a destructive reentry over the Pacific Ocean.
Milestones
52nd manned space flight 22nd Soviet manned space flight 14th Soyuz manned space flight 1st grandfather in space (Demin)
1974-096A 2 December 1974
Pad 1, Site 5, Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan
8 December 1974
30 km north of Dzhezkazgan
R7 (11A511U); spacecraft serial number (7K-TM) #73 5 days 22hrs 23 min 35 sec Buran (Snowstorm)
Soviet ASTP manned test-flight
Flight Crew
FILIPCHENKO, Anatoly Vasilyevich, 46, Soviet Air Force, commander, 2nd mission
Previous mission: Soyuz 7 (1969)
RUKAVISHNIKOV, Nikolay Nikolayevich, 42, civilian, flight engineer, 2nd mission
Previous mission: Soyuz 10 (1971)
Flight Log
Following three years of discussions which featured a Soyuz docking with a Skylab, or an Apollo docking with a Salyut, the first international manned space mission was agreed. The climax of detente between the USA and the Soviet Union in 1972 was marked by the agreement between President Richard Nixon and Premier Leonid Brezhnev for a joint flight between Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft in July 1975. The Apollo would be fitted with a docking module with an androgynous docking ring adapter, which would mate with a similar docking ring adapter on the front of the Orbital Module of the Soyuz. The resulting Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, ASTP, was a remarkable example of international cooperation and a fusion of technology and communications. To ensure that they had everything working well, the Soviets conducted two unmanned tests of the newly configured Soyuz as Cosmos 638 and 672, and followed this up with a manned flight of Soyuz 16, which would make a simulated rendezvous and docking with an imaginary Apollo.
Despite the close cooperation, the US was caught by surprise when the Soviets announced, without warning, that they had launched Soyuz 16, with Anatoly Filipchenko and Nikolay Rukavishnikov, at 14: 40 hrs local time from Baikonur, and that it was already in orbit. At first, the Soyuz was placed into a 51° orbit with an apogee of 291km (181 miles), too high for a real ASTP mission. Soyuz, however, moved into a more compatible orbit for an evaluation of the Soyuz guidance and manoeuvring system.
|
Filipchenko inside the OM during the Soyuz 16 ASTP dress rehearsal mission
|
The docking system had an imitation Apollo docking ring fixed to it and the cosmonauts used this to simulate various docking modes. They also changed the cabin atmosphere to an oxygen-nitrogen mix as used in Apollo. Soyuz conducted further orbital manoeuvring tests, including a circularisation burn, and signalled to the Apollo team to conduct a mock Apollo launch and to start important tracking tests. All in all, it was pretty unspectacular but highly successful, giving the US more confidence in the Soviet system after its Salyut and Soyuz 15 failures.
Filipchenko and Rukavishnikov landed in the cold steppe land at T + 5 days 22 hours 23 minutes 35 seconds and were immediately wrapped in thick overcoats.
Milestones
53rd manned space flight 23rd Soviet manned space flight 15th Soyuz manned space flight
1st manned use of R7/Soyuz U (11A511U) launch vehicle
1975-001A 11 January 1975
Pad 1, Site 5, Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan
9 February 1975
110 km northeast of Tselinograd
R7 (11A511); spacecraft serial number (7K-T) #38
29 days 13hrs 19 min 45 sec
Zenit (Zenith)
First Salyut 4 resident crew programme
Flight Crew
GUBAREV, Aleksey Aleksandrovich, 42, Soviet Air Force, commander GRECHKO, Georgy Mikhailovich, 42, civilian, flight engineer
Flight Log
The Soviet’s next space station, the civilian (DOS-4) Salyut 4 (1974-104A), was launched on 26 December 1974. It was basically the same as Salyut 1, but instead of two pairs of solar panels it had three steerable panels mounted centrally. Soyuz 17, the first visitor to Salyut 4, with rookie cosmonauts Aleksey Gubarev and Georgy Grechko aboard, was launched at 02: 43 hrs local time from Baikonur and entered a 51° orbit which had a maximum altitude of 354 km (220 miles). Docking with Salyut’s front port took place about a day later. The crew – who had found a notice telling them to wipe their feet! – entered Salyut and freshened its air and powered it up.
Salyut 4, equipped with a new Delta automatic navigation system, was dedicated to science, carrying seven astronomical, eight medical and at least six other technological experiments. The crew was kept so busy that it was estimated that Grechko covered 4.8 weightless km (3 miles) a day moving from instrument to instrument. They used a bicycle ergonometer, operated a solar telescope, grew plants in a space garden, observed a supernova, and tried out different muscle loading suits. The crew was quiet and methodical and was described as the least demonstrative ever flown.
The flight was so quietly followed that it came as some surprise that when Soyuz 17 landed it had flown the longest Soviet space flight – T + 29 days 13 hours 19 minutes 45 seconds – and had exceeded the flight time of the first US Skylab mission. Gubarev and Grechko came through cloud only 240 m (787 ft) high and landed in gusts of wind of up to 70kph (43mph), 110 km (68 miles) northeast of Tselinograd.
|
Grechko (left) and Gubarev evaluating the restraint harness on the Salyut 4 mock-up at TsPK
|
|
|
|
|
54th manned space flight 24th Soviet manned space flight 16th Soyuz manned space flight
|
|
None – failed to reach orbit 5 April 1975
Pad 1, Site 5, Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan 5 April 1975
Southwest of Gorno-Altaisk, Western Siberia, 1,200 metres up on the slope of the Teremok-3 mountain R7 (11A511); spacecraft serial number (7K-T) #39 21 min 27 sec Ural (Urals)
Intended second Salyut 4 resident crew
Flight Crew
LAZAREV, Vasily Grigoryevich, 47, Soviet Air Force, commander,
2nd mission
Previous mission: Soyuz 12 (1973)
MAKAROV, Oleg Grigoryevich, 42, civilian, flight engineer, 2nd mission Previous mission: Soyuz 12 (1973)
Flight Log
The task of the Soyuz 18 cosmonauts, Vasily Lazarev and Oleg Makarov, given a Salyut mission at last, was to extend the Soviet manned duration record to about 60 days. They were launched at 16: 02hrs local time from Baikonur. The strap-on boosters of the SL-4 shut down as planned, the core stage shut down and all seemed to be going well as the staging process began. The second stage ignited and spewed its exhaust through the lattice-like framework attaching the core and second stage. These stages were to be separated by firing two sets of six pyrotechnic latches, one set at the top and the other at the bottom of the lattice structure.
Three of the upper latches fired prematurely, partially separating the upper stage on one side of its circumference. The flight of Soyuz 18 was in deep trouble and the crew was powerless to do anything during this automatic phase of the mission. With separation incomplete the second stage was now dragging a spent core stage. Soyuz veered 10° off course before the abort system gyroscopes detected the lack of control. Soyuz itself fired its engine to separate from the strangely configured, errant rocket. The Orbital Module and Instrument Module were jettisoned and the Descent Module was positioned for its low-speed, high-G re-entry from a height of 192 km (119 miles). The crew experienced only 400 seconds of weightlessness instead of their planned 60 days!
The crew, being subjected to as much as 20.6-G, were extremely concerned that they were heading for a landing in China, as relations between the two countries
|
Lazarev and Makarov perform one of many Soviet pre-flight traditions. Unfortunately, these did not help them complete their mission as planned
|
were not good at the time. In the event, they missed the border by 320 km (199 miles), landing 1,574 km (978 miles) downrange from Baikonur, at T + 21 minutes 27 seconds – the longest sub-orbital manned space flight, the shortest Soviet manned space flight, and the shortest two-person manned space flight. The capsule apparently landed on a mountain and had been rolling down before its parachute became snarled on a tree.
Rescue teams spotted them 30 minutes later and they were recovered some time later that day. Detailed accounts of the launch abort have been released over the years, including recollections from the two cosmonauts themselves. However, it is doubtful whether any announcement would have been made at the time had it not been for the fact that ASTP was looming. As it was, the worried USA officials were told that Soyuz 18 was launched on an old booster and that the Soyuz intended for the joint mission would use the uprated version first used to launch a crew on Soyuz 16, the ASTP dress-rehearsal mission the previous December.
Milestones
55th manned space flight
25th Soviet manned space flight
17th Soyuz manned space flight (1st sub-orbital)
1st aborted launch and emergency landing
1975-044A 24 May 1975
Pad 1, Site 5, Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan 26 July 1975
54 km northeast of Arkalyk R7 (11A511); spacecraft serial number (7K-T) #40 62 days 23 hrs 20 min 08 sec Kavkas (Caucasus)
Second (originally 3rd) Salyut 4 resident crew programme
Flight Crew
KLIMUK, Pyotr Ilyich, 32, Soviet Air Force, commander, 2nd mission Previous mission: Soyuz 13 (1973)
SEVASTYANOV, Vitaly Ivanovich, 39, civilian, flight engineer, 2nd mission Previous mission: Soyuz 9 (1970)
Flight Log
It didn’t take the determined Soviet space team long to recover from the Soyuz 18-1 abort. Soyuz 18 was launched at 19: 58 hrs local time with the original back-up crew, which duly docked with Salyut 4 in the standard one day. Cosmonauts Klimuk and Sevastyanov began a work regime which involved detailed work on one experiment before moving on to another. This single discipline approach was illustrated by the multi-spectral photography session lasting from 8 to 11 June. The crew, which reached a maximum altitude of 361 km (224 miles) during the mission, took over 2,000 remotesensing photographs, and Sevastyanov claimed that as a result the whereabouts of even the smallest ore deposit in the Soviet Union was known.
The crew repaired a cosmic ray detector and took over 600 pictures of the sun with the OTS solar telescope. One of the crew’s X-ray photographs indicated that the celestial object Cygnus X-1 was a black hole. Thirteen days were spent on astrophysics, six on technical and ten on medical experiments. The crew also spent ten days of relaxation and two days were taken up with packing and unpacking equipment, the Soviets estimated. On 15 July, there came a “symbolic rendezvous” with the ASTP crews, when the spacecraft came to within 320 km (199 miles) of each other. It has been reported that such were their struggles with the space station’s environmental control system towards the end of the mission that it was impossible to see out of the windows and the walls of the station became mouldy.
There was considerable interest about how the crew would feel after the flight of over 60 days. Soyuz 18 came home to a televised landing 54 km (34 miles) northeast of Arkalyk at T + 62 days 23 hours 20 minutes 20 seconds, 59 days of which were spent
|
The second crew to reside aboard Salyut 4, left Sevastyanov and Klimuk
|
making 900 orbits aboard Salyut 4. Doctors wanted to carry the crew from the spacecraft but Klimuk emotionally insisted that the crew egress on their own. They both admitted that re-adaptation to gravity took some time. Indeed, Klimuk once awoke to see Sevastyanov sleeping in his terrestrial bed with his arms raised in the air as if floating in weightlessness.
Salyut 4 supported a further mission, the unmanned Soyuz 20 in November. This was used to test, in part, the planned Progress re-supply mission profile that would begin with Salyut 6 in 1978. The station re-entered the atmosphere in February 1977.
Milestones
56th manned space flight 26th Soviet manned space flight 18th Soyuz manned space flight
Sevastyanov celebrates his 40th birthday in space (8 July) Klimuk celebrates his 33rd birthday in space (10 July)
2001-035A
