Category Salyut – The First Space Station

Let us consider the function of the valve which was the technical cause of the loss of the Soyuz 11 crew. The limited capacity of the launch vehicle obliged Feoktistov and his design team to make the Soyuz descent module a very small vehicle – it is so cramped that it is right on the limit for accommodating the human body. In fact, the bell-shaped module stands 2.16 metres tall, has a maximum diameter at its base of 2.2 metres and weighs only 2.8 tonnes. Yet it had to contain couches for three cosmonauts and all the necessary life-support equipment, together with the systems to operate the spacecraft in space and two large parachutes for landing. The ‘free volume’ of the cabin is a mere 2.5 cubic metres, which is less room per cosmonaut than the Vostok capsule! The air in such a cramped module can support the lives of three men for only a short time – but this is viable because it operates autonomously only for the 30 minutes from the separation of the orbital and propulsion modules through re-entry and landing. Nevertheless, once the main parachute deployed at an altitude of approximately 5 km, two valves were to be opened to allow fresh air to enter the cabin; both to equalise the internal and external pressures and to eliminate the risk of the cosmonauts asphyxiating in the event of their having to remain inside for some time after landing, as might occur if the hatch were unable to be opened as a result of a technical problem or if the module were to land in water and the hatch was partially submerged.

The fact that both valves are closed during the majority of the mission and then opened only a few minutes prior to landing confused the State Commission. Surely the recovery team would open the hatch promptly, or if the module landed off target the cosmonauts would open it themselves! Given that the premature opening of one of the valves caused the deaths of three cosmonauts, what where the valves actually for? Was their inclusion a terrible error by the designers? The explanation from the TsKBEM of the risk of asphyxiation if for some reason the hatch was unable to be opened promptly was inconclusive. An additional confusion concerned the fact that each valve had two shutters. In fact, this aspect of the design would prove to be one of the most important factors in the Soyuz 11 tragedy.

To understand what happened, we must examine the valve’s structure. The design was straightforward, involving a cylinder of cork with a rubber ring and a piston rod supported by a ball-lock shutter that was automatically controlled. The crew had no

The valve 303

control over the automatic shutter, which would be opened by a pair of pyrotechnic charges after the deployment of the main parachute. Next to the automatic shutter was one that the cosmonauts could open manually by a small rotating knob. So long as at least one shutter remained closed, the valve ought to be shut. The valves were placed below the ring of the hatch: the No. 1 valve above Dobrovolskiy’s couch and the No. 2 valve above Patsayev’s couch, on opposite sides of the hatch so that if the module were to land on water there would be no chance of both of the valves being submerged. In the event of a splashdown, the manual shutters would be operated as required to prevent water ingress. This was the only circumstance in which the crew were to operate the manual shutters.

Why did the automatic valve open at an altitude of approximately 150 km, rather than at 5 km? The orbital and descent modules were connected by a dozen bolts in the ring that housed the hatch. During the assembly of the spacecraft, the bolts had been fastened using a special tool, then the joint was checked in an altitude chamber to ensure a hermetic seal. The combined force of all the bolts was about 100 tonnes. To separate the modules in space, the bolts had to be severed simultaneously. Hence each bolt incorporated a small explosive charge and an electric circuit. According to the programme, a timer would cause electricity to be supplied to the bolts in order to detonate the explosive charges and sever the bolts, applying a force of 100 tonnes for

a duration of one microsecond, in the process sending a shock wave across the metallic surface of the craft. The valves were located close alongside the connecting ring, and so would have been particularly sensitive to the propagation of this shock. In the case of Soyuz 11 this caused an automatic valve to pop open. The fact that particles of gunpowder were found inside one valve was conclusive proof that it had opened at the moment of separation.

On 26 April 1971, immediately after his return from the Soyuz 10 mission, Shatalov was promoted to Major-General. Two months later he superseded Kamanin. This appointment was largely the result of his close relationship with Marshal Kutakhov, who was his mentor prior to becoming a cosmonaut, his participation in organising the historic visit to Baykonur of President Charles De Gaulle in June 1966,[137] and his excellent management skills. His promotion coincided with the Soyuz 11 mission, and his first duty was to participate in the State Commission which investigated the loss of that crew. This recommended a thorough restructuring of the manned space programme. As part of this review, the training of cosmonauts was broadened and, among other things, they became more actively involved in the preparation of the experiments which they were to perform in space.

During Shatalov’s 16 years as the head of cosmonaut training he was responsible for equipping the TsPK with simulators and other training facilities, the recruitment of new military cosmonauts, and the selection of crews for a succession of DOS and Almaz space stations. In the meantime, in April 1972 he defended a master’s thesis at the Gagarin Military Air Force Academy, and in 1974 he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-General.

Kamanin’s successor, General Vladimir Shatalov, with Lebedyev (centre) and Klimuk in training for Soyuz 13.

When Gorbachov initiated his reforms of the Soviet Union in 1985, these affected the Army too. The structure of the Air Force began to change. Many older generals were retired, including Georgiy Beregovoy, the 65-year-old Director of the TsPK. After three possible successors had been rejected, it was suggested to Shatalov that he should take on this role in addition to his existing duties. As he was 58 years old at the time and according to the new law his retirement would take effect at age 60, he asked that he be allowed to remain in post for longer. On being promised that he would be able to serve until 65, he accepted. His task would be to organise training for the ambitious Mir and Buran programmes. For Shatalov, the direction of this unique training center, which at that time employed about 400 people, represented a special challenge. When it was put to him that the TsPK should be transferred from the Air Force to the Space Army (as the Strategic Rocket Forces, which managed the Baykonur cosmodrome, had become) he disagreed. When he was promised the rank of Colonel-General in return for his acquiescence, he refused. He also resisted Glushko’s efforts to transfer the TsPK to NPO Energiya. His campaign to keep the

TsPK in the Air Force was not helped by the antipathy of the leading military figures. In the aftermath of the upheaval in the Soviet Union in 1991 he was transferred to the reserve corps of the Commander in Chief of the Air Force, and then ordered to retire in March 1992.

By September 1991 Shatalov had been a member of all State Commissions over two decades that had made the final decisions on launching manned space missions. He related his role in the space programme in his autobiography, published in 1978 as The Hard Road to Space.14 He also co-authored the books The Application of Computers in Spacecraft Guidance System (1974), People and Space (1975), The Soviet Cosmonauts (1979) and Space to Earth (1981). For almost three decades he led a society which promoted friendly relations with Cuba. A 21-km-diameter crater on the Moon was named after him.

As regards retirement: “I have decided that after 65 years of life, of which almost 50 were devoted to the Army, I have some right to live for myself. I have not started attaching myself to political, religious or commercial organisations…. They have no interest for me. Although I had many offers, especially in 1992, I have not gone into politics either – it was suggested that I become a member of one of the many parties and enter parliament.” Ever since 1957 he has been interested in underwater fishing. The sea attracts him now, as once he was attracted to the sky and to space: “I cannot imagine the sea without submarine life. What is the point of lying on the sand to sunbathe, without wondering what might be found under water. No matter where I travel, I carry my mask, my fins and 8 kg of iron as ballast for diving. If the weather is suitable, I also like to ski. I love to spend time in my vacation house, to mow, and to tend my small garden. My wife is devoted to agronomy. Every spring we start with transplantation, and plant new sprouts. . . . I want to spend what is left of my life peacefully with my family, children and grandchildren. Now, as a retired person, I analyse the events of my tempestuous life in cosmonautics.”

At 2.14 a. m. the Salyut space station completed its 1,000th orbit since its launch on 19 April. It was in the communication zone at the time, and cosmonaut Gorbatko was the communication officer at the TsUP. He pointed out that the crew had been on board for 206 orbits, and joked that perhaps they should remain for an additional thousand orbits. In accordance with the flight plan, 20 June was a rest day in space. They made a TV report showing off the station’s various sections and its equipment. While in radio contact, they reported observations of the Earth and its atmosphere that they had made in recent days, including the African sand storm they had seen the previous day.

From Volkov’s diary:

20 June. The third week of our work in orbit has started, but the station has been in space for two months, making 1,000 orbits. Because the commander Dobrovolskiy and research engineer Patsayev are sleeping, I’ll be on duty at the time of the 1,000th orbit. In the sleeping bags, I can only see their heads. In these ‘beds’ you get so comfortable that sometimes you grow reluctant to get

up.

There is only one orbit until the 1,000th circle. It has just started the 999th. In a few minutes, Zarya will call me. Through the static I hear:

‘‘Yantar! Here is Zarya. On line!’’

‘‘Zarya! I am Yantar 2, I hear you excellently!’’

‘‘Yantar 2, how is it going?’’

‘‘How is it going? Normal. My crewmates are asleep. With no one to talk to, I don’t feel so cosy in this huge space home. It is a feeling that is familiar to anyone who, as the sailors say, has duty on the ship’s bow. As I speak to you I feel as if I am at home. I know that the weather below isn’t very good, being cloudy, windy and rainy. Up here, away from the portholes, the Sun is blinding and the Earth is covered with the clouds.’’

‘‘Don’t you have rain?’’ Zarya asked in jest.

‘‘No, we don’t have rain. Nothing Earth-like is in this vicinity. Just the real splendour of space!’’

‘‘Here, they are preparing the With Good Morning radio programme.’’ ‘‘That is good news.’’

We have heard the pre-recorded selections of music on our tape recorder so often that they are no longer our favourites! We are therefore eager for the promised radio programme, in particular our music requests.

It is interesting how the commander and I look with bearded faces on the TV screens. My beard reminds me of a Tatarian-Mongolian man. Honestly, I don’t tend to it any more.

The Earth asked: ‘‘How do you hear the short waves?’’

‘‘It is good – especially in the western hemisphere. It is so pleasant to hear words in your own language while passing over South America.’’

Next a question about our plants: ‘‘Do you look after the shrubs?’’

‘‘Of course! In fact, more often than planned in our flight programme. We have a special love for our greenery. We feel that it links us to the remote – yet so close – Earthly realm. We devote great attention to our ‘little cosmic garden’. The vegetables grow well.’’

The communication session is over. The next will be on the 1,000th orbit. How long will my two crewmates sleep? Will I alone see the number 1,000 appear on the display of the globe? No, the crew commander will be with me. I’ll awaken him in half an hour. He will take the duty, and communicate with Zarya.

We know that the 1,000th orbit will start at 00.44.44 on 20 June. In these final minutes, the only thing that I do is watch the onboard clocks. Yes! The first seconds of the jubilee orbit have begun.

When journalists at the TsUP asked Yeliseyev, the flight director, about the crew, he said: “Each man has a different character and, of course, during communication sessions this is very noticeable. Patsayev doesn’t speak very often, we almost never hear him. He will just let us know which experiment he has finished, or ask details about his work. Volkov speaks the most. He also expresses his emotions the most. He not only talks about the flight programme and the investigations, he also asks us about soccer scores and weather conditions. He sends his regards. This is totally in accordance with his spirit and nature – on the Earth he was also so communicative. In terms of emotions, Dobrovolskiy is somewhere in the middle. He always speaks calmly and certainly.’’

0. 59 a. m.

Volkov: “The 1,000th orbit is a working orbit. Although today is a rest day, we decided to devote it to the Earth – we photographed the cloud cover, the oceans and the landscape for geological studies and issues relating to the national economy. In general, we are doing work which is usually assigned to working orbits. We want to spend every minute of our ‘leisure’ time maximising the results for return to Earth.’’ Zarya: ‘‘We send you our warmest regards – there are so many greetings.’’ Volkov: ‘‘About 4 o’clock, when Viktor wakes up, we’ll do our physical exercise and then do what I have already said – photographing and monitoring the Earth.’’ Zarya: ‘‘If you have the information to hand, please tell us what you have done for the last 24 hours in terms of medicine.’’

Volkov: ‘‘We are doing all the experiments required by the physicians.”

Zarya: ‘‘Understood. Thank you. Well done!’’

Volkov: “I carefully log our food and water consumption. Tell our comrades there who are responsible for this that I am logging it all. We have written reports on the operation of all the systems.[87] On board this ship, we are sharing our duties – each of us has a different area of responsibility. Everything is as planned.”

3.57 a. m.

Zarya: “Yantar 3. Firstly, we are happy with your Orion work. Tomorrow we also plan Orion work. Did you perform two sessions with Orion with one or two stars?”

Patsayev: “Two stars.”

5.30 a. m.

Dobrovolskiy: “Yesterday at 14.58.00 above the northwestern coast of Africa, I observed a sand storm at 344 degrees longitude and 17 degrees latitude.”

8.36 a. m.

Zarya: “One request: please water the plants twice a day – at the start of the day, and at the end.”

Patsayev: “In the instructions it says to water once only.”

Zarya: “Understood. However, it is necessary to do so twice. Report the general conditions of the shrubs, and in particular the development of the first real foliage. Report on it daily.”

For most of 20 June the cosmonauts rested and monitored the Earth, its clouds and ocean, and made observations of the stars. In addition, Dobrovolskiy provided a TV report for viewers on Earth – the request for which was probably an attempt by the TsUP to highlight his role as the station’s commander.

Television Report:

Zarya-25 (TV reporter): “Yantar 1, as the first commander of the Salyut orbital station, do you have any impressions?’’

Dobrovolskiy: “I have great impressions. I am lucky that my first space flight is to this station. It is composed of two spacecraft: the station itself and the transport ship docked with the station. It is a large complex. It allows us to conduct a great deal of scientific work. The designers, engineers and diligent workers did an excellent job of providing comfortable living conditions for the crew.’’

Zarya-25: “We understand that you have controlled both the Soyuz spacecraft and the Salyut station. Obviously, they have different characteristics. Can you speak of the differences in flying these vehicles in space?’’

Dobrovolskiy: “I can tell you that our training enabled us to master the techniques required. We have no difficulty. It is very easy to control the transport

Tracking ships 237

ship, and the entire orbital station is very responsive – easily controllable. In general, it is just as each of us dreamed flying in space would be like.”

Zarya-25: “Understand. Yantar 1. Specifically, what have you done as the station commander?”

Dobrovolskiy: “As a matter of fact, my first task was one of the most interesting operations – docking. We wanted so much to conduct it in the best possible manner. As for work, the station is so large and there are so many possibilities for work that each member of the crew has specific responsibilities. It is a complex issue. On the flight to the station we had some discomfort [adapting to weightlessness], but after entering the station we began to work at full strength and soon it was as expected.”

Zarya-25: “Thank you very much, Yantar.”

Despite the fact that the general health of the cosmonauts was acceptable, in their two weeks in space they had spent considerably less time on physical exercise than planned owing to the following reasons:

• when the load-bearing ‘penguin’ suits were worn during exercise, they tore, and their function was greatly reduced once the elastic sections had become damaged;

• some of the supporting struts of the Veter lower-body negative pressure unit were damaged early on, and thereafter the cosmonauts rarely used it; and

• use of the treadmill was restricted because the noise was sufficient to disturb anyone attempting to rest, and because it transmitted vibrations through the station’s structure which caused the solar panels and antennas to oscillate and the propellants to slosh.

How did the cosmonauts react? It is possible to make inferences from the analyses performed by the medics, the state of the cabin, and the data recorded by the ‘black box’. During the descent, each cosmonaut wore a medical belt with various sensors and the data on their vital functions was recorded. Prior to their return, the general physical state of each man was good. Dobrovolskiy’s pulse in a normal, unstressed state was 78­85 beats per minute. Volkov, being more dynamic and emotional, was usually higher, and at the time of undocking from Salyut his pulse increased to 120, perhaps reflecting his concern about the hatch seal. Patsayev’s pulse was between 92 and 106.

During the first second after the separation of the spacecraft’s modules the pulses of all three men dramatically increased. Dobrovolskiy rose to 114. Volkov shot up to 180! Four seconds after the onset of depressurisation Dobrovolskiy’s respiration rate was 48 breaths per minute; the normal rate is 16. Such rates are characteristic of a sudden oxygen starvation. The rapid increases in pulse and respiration indicate that the crewmembers were immediately aware of what was occurring. In addition to hearing the air leaking out and feeling the pressure fall, they would have heard a loud siren and seen the value of the cabin pressure decline on the indicator set in the lower left corner of the main instrument panel. There would also have been physical indications, including a rapid fall in temperature and air fogging as the water vapour condensed. They would have suffered the effects of decompression – an immediate strong pain in the head, chest and abdomen, followed by burst eardrums and blood streaming from the nose and ears. Their heart rates rose during the first 20 seconds, but by 60 seconds had reduced to just 40 per cent of the baseline.

Death was not instantaneous. Due to out-gassing of oxygen from the venous blood supply to the lungs, the men would have remained consciousness for 50-60 seconds. However, they could have moved about and tried to remedy their plight only during the first 13 seconds; this being the ‘time of useful consciousness’, corresponding to the time that it took for the oxygen-deprived blood to pass from the lungs to the brain. Because the valves were situated above their couches, Dobrovolskiy and Patsayev attempted to take action. Being in the centre, nearest the hatch, Dobrovolskiy was in the best position to act. However, the cosmonauts did not know the actual source of the leak. Recalling the difficulty that they had faced in sealing the hatch, their initial diagnosis must have been that the air was leaking through the hatch. Dobrovolskiy unbuckled and pulled himself to the hatch. However, it was properly closed. When Volkov and Patsayev switched off the radio equipment in order to listen to the hiss in an effort to identify the source of the leak, this was realised to be one of the two valves. But which one? Valve No. 2, above Patsayev, was marked as ‘open’, so he went to try to close it. But it was No. 1 which was open. It is difficult to know who did so, but either Patsayev or Dobrovolskiy began to close the hand-operated shutter of valve No. 1. However, in normal circumstances it required at least 35 seconds to close the valve by hand, and by the time they passed out it was only partially cycled. Volkov was too far away from the valves to assist, so he remained strapped into his couch. By virtue of being more active, Dobrovolskiy and Patsayev would probably have lost consciousness before Volkov, for whom the frustration of being unable to assist must have been intense.

They died rapidly. The initial paralysis due to oxygen starvation would have been followed by general convulsions. During this time, water vapour rapidly formed in the venous blood, and in soft tissue. Blood and other bodily fluids boiled and turned to vapour, causing the body to swell to perhaps twice its normal volume. The heart rate initially soared, but then diminished to an unsustainable rate. The arterial blood pressure dropped to zero after about 60 seconds, but the venous pressure rose due to gas and vapour distending the venous system. Within a minute, the venous pressure exceeded the arterial pressure. In effect, there was no circulation of blood. After the initial rush of gas from the lungs during decompression, gas and vapour continued to flow out through the airways, and the sustained evaporation of water chilled the mouth and nose to almost freezing temperatures. The remainder of the body would have cooled more slowly. The first fatal damage occurred in the cosmonauts’ lungs, as the most vulnerable part of the body in such circumstances. They naturally tried to hold their breath, but as the cabin pressure declined the lungs and thorax became over-extended, tearing and rupturing the lung tissue and capillaries. The trapped air was forced directly into the blood, following the ruptured blood vessels and creating massive air bubbles in the vital organs, including the heart and brain. Clinical death began after 90-100 seconds, simultaneously in all three men. By 110 seconds after the separation of the modules there were no heart or respiration rates recorded. Ten seconds later, life was extinct. The cabin remained in vacuum for 11.5 minutes, then began to fill with air from the upper atmosphere.

After his third and final space flight on Soyuz 10 in April 1971 Yeliseyev became one of Yakov Tregub’s deputies, being responsible for the preparation and control of manned missions. He worked mainly on the development of the programmes for missions and the onboard instruction, the technical aspects of crew training, and the control of a flight. When Prime Minister Aleksey Kosygin and America’s President Richard Nixon signed an agreement which called for the first joint space mission involving the two space-faring nations, Tregub suggested that Yeliseyev should fly, but Yeliseyev did not wish to make any more flights. “I had the feeling that Tregub saw me as a potential rival. Supposing that I would be interested in working with the Americans, he said several times that perhaps I should fly as the flight engineer, but I had already made up my mind and did not wish to change my decision. Very soon I [138]

realised that my suspicion about Tregub was justified. When I was called by Minister Afanasyev, … he asked me whether I would agree to run mission control for the Soviet-American flight. … By rank, this offer ought to have been made to Tregub, so I concluded that they must have something against him. I accepted the offer.” In this way Yeliseyev became the director of manned spaceflight. In parallel, he gained his doctorate in February 1973.

It was at this time that the new Mission Control Centre was built in Kaliningrad. It was more capable than the old facility in Yevpatoriya. In the next eight years (until 1981) thirty manned flights were conducted under Yeliseyev’s technical direction. In the case of the historic Soyuz-Apollo mission he was given a delicate task. Once the docking had occurred, the intention was that two of the three astronauts would join the two cosmonauts in the orbital module of the Soyuz. Shortly beforehand, Yeliseyev was called to the office of the State Commission and was told by Ustinov that he was to transmit a congratulatory message by Leonid Brezhnyev. This would not be easy, as every minute of the joint activities had been meticulously planned. But the message had to be read. To avoid sending the message himself, Yeliseyev proposed that it should be done by a professional TV reporter. Ustinov agreed. Such a person was urgently delivered to the TsUP, given the text and instructed to read it, word by word, without omitting anything. Some minutes later the reporter came to Yeliseyev:

“I cannot do it.’’

“What can’t you do?’’

“I can’t read this word by word.’’

“Why not?’’

“It says here ‘L. Brezhnyev’.’’

“So what?’’

‘‘I cannot say ‘L. Brezhnyev’. I can say ‘Leonid Brezhnyev’, ‘Leonid Ilich Brezhnyev’, or simply ‘Brezhnyev’. What should I say?’’

Just in case, I decided to ask Ustinov. There was not much time left before the start of the session with the cosmonauts. Without hesitating, I sprinted to Ustinov and put to him the question posed by the reporter. Ustinov remained silent, pretending that he had not heard me. I realised that he did not wish to take the responsibility. I tried my best to assist: I suggested that the reporter should say ‘Leonid Brezhnyev’. Still Ustinov said nothing. I started to sweat. There was now just one minute to the beginning of the session. Noticing my nervousness, Afanasyev volunteered, ‘‘I agree with the suggestion.’’ Ustinov made a slight ambiguous nod that could be interpreted as his agreement, but also indicated that he considered the conversation over.

As the director of space flight, Yeliseyev sometimes had to make decisions on which depended the lives of cosmonauts in orbit: for example during the flight of Soyuz 25 in October 1977, which was unable to dock with Salyut 6 and had to be ordered home, and again when Nikolay Rukavishnikov was commanding Soyuz 33 in April 1979 and had a problem with his main engine (see below).

In December 1985 Yeliseyev officially left the cosmonaut-engineer group briefly

in order to serve as a deputy to the General Designer of NPO Energiya. Then, at the suggestion of the Minister of Education, for five and a half years he was the rector of Moscow’s Higher Technical School (MVTU) Bauman. But this was not a happy experience because his proposal to restructure the school faced opposition. He gave up the rectorship and went to work for IBM, which had begun to make a presence in the Soviet and Asian markets, remaining with them until January 1996. Today he is the head of the Festo international fund. In Russia this fund promotes education and directs a department of the Moscow Energy Institute. He travels a lot. With his wife Larisa he visits historic places in Russia. He reads books on economics by Western authors. He also thinks about life and his contribution to the space programme: “On asking myself what I achieved in all those years, it does not seem very much when compared to what was being done around me. Obviously that is the way it ought to be. A life time is no more than a particle in the kaleidoscope that represents men’s destinies – no more than a drop in the sea.” This sentiment inspired the title of his autobiography, Life – A Drop in the Sea, which was published in 1998.[139]

As noted, the mission of the first Salyut station was controlled from the TsUP in Yevpatoriya, Crimea, supported by several tracking ships of the Soviet Academy of Sciences.

In March 1971 Academician Sergey Korolev had relieved Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov in the North Atlantic, near Sable Island off the Canadian coast. Its first task had been to support Soyuz 10 in April. Now it was supporting Soyuz 11. Most of the crewmen of Academician Sergey Korolev originated from Odessa, the city in which Dobrovolskiy was born. They also had fond memories of Volkov, who had visited the ship in December 1970 and attended its launch. It had all the apparatus needed to control the most complex operations of the Soyuz-Salyut orbital complex, including orbital manoeuvres. It could communicate with the TsUP via a Molniya satellite. When the station’s path took it over the eastern region of North America or the North Atlantic, Academician Sergey Korolev would be able to communicate with it for up to 12 minutes, and two or three communication sessions were possible each day.

An older and less sophisticated ship was stationed in the equatorial region of the Atlantic Ocean. This was Bezhitsa, which was on its fifth voyage since its launch in

February 1967. It had taken its station at 13 degrees west and 1.5 degrees south in March 1971 to support the Salyut mission. It could communicate with the crew of a spacecraft and receive telemetry, but did not routinely transmit to the TsUP – this required the use of the internal channels of the Soviet Navy. Also in the southern Atlantic Ocean was Kegostrov, which was another of the smaller vessels launched in 1967, and also on its fifth voyage. It had sailed in February 1971 and taken its station at 24 degrees west and 22 degrees south. Like Bezhitsa, it was equipped to receive telemetry from the spacecraft and communicate with its crew. Depending on the schedule decided for the return of Soyuz 11, one or other of these two ships was to monitor the critical braking manoeuvre.[88] Several other communication ships were located in the South Atlantic to assist with the operation of Salyut: Morzhovets, Borovochi, Nevely and Ristna.

Specific references

1. Yeliseyev, A. S., Life – A Drop in the Sea. Aviatsiya and kosmonavtika, Moscow, 1998, pp. 77-79 (in Russian).

2. Siddiqi, Asif A., The Soviet Space Race with Apollo. University Press of Florida, 2003, pp. 778-780.

3. Vasilyev, M. P., Salyut on Orbit, Mashinostroenie, Moscow, 1973, pp. 81-107 (in Russian).

4. www. ski-omer. ru (in Russian, about Soviet tracking ships).

5. Kamanin, N. P., Hidden Space, Book 4. Novosti kosmonavtiki, 2001, pp. 320­325 (in Russian).

In analysing the actions of the Soyuz 11 cosmonauts during the decompression to assess whether they might have saved themselves, there are two basic approaches. Mishin and the TsKBEM engineers concluded that the crew should have been able to halt the leak – but they had panicked and failed to identify the source of the leak in time. But General Kamanin and the military cosmonauts at the TsPK thought that the decompression occurred so rapidly that the crew had no real chance of manually closing the shutter on the leaking valve.

Of the official sources, Kamanin provided probably the most realistic description of the fateful events. As he wrote in his diary, following the braking manoeuvre the cosmonauts felt the onset of deceleration – which meant that the ship had begun its descent:

Aboard, everything is normal. However, the cosmonauts, remembering their recent difficulty with the transfer hatch, carefully monitored the pressure in the cabin. A bang is heard – there is the separation of the modules. But what is this? The pressure in the cabin begins rapidly to fall. … Decompression! After unfastening from his couch, Dobrovolskiy goes to inspect the hatch. It is airtight, but the pressure continues to fall. They can hear the whistle of air venting to space. Because of noise from the transmitters and receivers, they cannot trace the source of the whistle. Volkov and Patsayev unfasten their shoulder straps and switch off the radio apparatus. The source of the whistle is above the centre couch – where a vent valve is located. Dobrovolskiy and Patsayev attempt to close the valve, but because they are weakened they fall back to the seat. As he loses consciousness, Dobrovolskiy manages to fasten the waist lock of his entangled straps.

Mishin argued that once the crew had realised that one of the valves had opened prematurely, they should have blocked the flow by placing a thumb over the inlet.[108] Some sources have pointed to a bruise on Dobrovolskiy’s thumb as evidence that he had indeed attempted to do this. Another source says the bruise was on Patsayev thumb, although this may actually have been a reference to his facial bruise. Mishin never accepted that the crew could not have saved themselves. To the end of his life he insisted that if only they had been better trained then they would have reacted properly, and therefore probably have survived: “How can you describe the deaths of great and brave people – a disaster which caused such pain to their relatives? It is more painful to know that it was avoidable. During separation, the explosive bolts generated a force that was too strong and the ball left its nest, opening the valve prematurely. The cosmonauts could hear the air whistling. Patsayev tried to close it using his thumb, but failed. There was a manually operated shutter with which it was possible fully to protect the cabin, but they either forgot it, or did not know, or missed it in their training.’’ In another interview, Mishin again criticised the crew: “During the decompression, the air would have escaped to space at such a high speed that the men had to have heard the whistling – a signal of imminent disaster. It was necessary to unfasten the belts, to stand up and to shut the valve. They could block the valve even using a thumb! . . . But the cosmonauts were disoriented. . . . Perhaps they were lost. . . . Patsayev seems to have realised what was the matter. He unfastened from his couch, but did not have time to stand up.’’

While Mishin was trying to blame the crew and to justify the spacecraft’s design, representatives of the TsPK thought differently. In contrast to Mishin, Kamanin was confident that the crew fought to save their lives right to the end: “Is it possible to accuse them of not knowing how ‘to plug the hole in the ship by finger’? We cannot presume this to be feasible at all, as no one has yet tried to do it. Indeed, outside the ship is the deep cold of the vacuum of space, which causes the instantaneous boiling of the blood. I think even in normal conditions it would be hard to hold a finger in open space for a period as brief as several seconds. In addition, the crew had first to locate the source of the decompression and then, ‘after plugging the hole by thumb’, to retain the hermetic seal of the cabin for 15-17 minutes during which they would be subjected to the increasing deceleration loads of the descent.’’[109]

Commenting on Mishin’s claim that a man could have blocked the valve using a finger, Dr. Yevgeniy Vorobyev pointed out that in such a rapid decompression the state of consciousness would have been diminished after 20 seconds. ‘‘To unbuckle, locate the hole under the cover and block this in 20 seconds would be unrealistic. It would have been necessary to train to do so. We tested the possibility of closing the valve manually, in the case of a splashdown. Even in a calm situation, this operation took 35-40 seconds. Thus, they had no chance of surviving.’’

General Shatalov openly condemned Mishin for his ongoing efforts to blame the crew. Cosmonaut Leonov tested manually closing the valve of the Soyuz simulator in the TsPK, taking 52 seconds, which was four times longer than the time available to the Soyuz 11 crew.

Although further explanations were given in Chertok’s memoirs, colleagues of the Soyuz 11 crew – in particular Yeliseyev, Kubasov, Shatalov and Leonov, together with Viktor Patsayev’s wife Vera – contributed the most to a full understanding the tragedy.

Aleksey Yeliseyev’s insight into the valves leads to the inevitable conclusion that the tragedy ought never to have occurred!

As noted, each valve had both an automatic and a manual shutter. However, when the designers devised the valve no one considered the possibility that the automatic shutter might open spontaneously. In accordance with instructions, prior to launch both shutters (automatic and manual) on valve No. 1 were required to be closed – in the mode ‘closed-closed’. On the other hand, on valve No. 2 the automatic shutter was to be closed and the manual shutter open – in mode ‘closed – open’. What does this mean? During the descent, four pyrotechnic charges were to open the automatic shutters on both valves at an altitude of 5 km. However, because the manual shutter on valve No. 1 was closed, air would flow into the cabin only through valve No. 2, whose manual shutter was already open. As noted, the reason for there being a pair of valves was to ensure that in the event of a splashdown in which water leaked into the module through valve No. 2, there was another valve on the opposite side which would allow in air – the research cosmonaut seated near valve No. 2 would close its manual shutter to halt water penetration while the commander opened the manually operated shutter on the valve positioned directly above his couch. However, during the preparation of the ship there was a mysterious change to the procedure! Instead of being ‘closed-closed’, valve No. 1 was actually set ‘closed-open’; and instead of‘closed-open’, valve No. 2 was set ‘closed-closed’. As the valves were identical, the technicians did not pay special attention to this change.

Top: Cosmonaut Lazaryev works on the hatch inside the Soyuz simulator, with one of two valves installed in the vicinity. Three bottom photos show the opening of one of the valves (left), the control for the manually operated shutter and the ventilation switches.

As the explosive bolts were fired to separate the orbital module, the shock caused the automatic shutter on valve No. 1 to open. This valve was positioned very near to two of the bolts, and thus was exposed to the greatest stress by the explosive action. Since the manually operated shutter had been left open, air was able to leak to space. A detailed analysis of the telemetry recorded by the ‘black box’ established that the automatic control system had fired the attitude control thrusters to counter the force of the air venting at speed through this valve. After inspecting the seal of the hatch, the cosmonauts quickly realised that the automatic shutter had inadvertently opened in one of the valves. Knowing that both shutters on valve No. 1 were supposed to be closed, they directed their attention to valve No. 2, which they believed had been set to ‘closed-open’ and was ‘open-open’ as a result of the shock of firing the bolts, but in fact it was still hermetically closed. Patsayev’s effort to close the manual shutter of valve No. 2 was foiled by the fact that it had already been closed prior to launch! Realising that valve No. 2 was closed, Patsayev or Dobrovolskiy set about closing the manual shutter of valve No. 1, but managed only to partially do so before losing consciousness.

According to Yeliseyev the cosmonauts forgot, or in panic missed the fact that the order of the valves had been changed! He said: ‘‘If they had just remembered this! If even they did not recall, but they had begun to close both valves just in case, they would have saved themselves.’’ The revision to the manually operated shutters was also noticed by Kubasov, who, in addition, noted another important detail: ‘‘At the cosmodrome, according to instructions, the manually operated shutter on one of the two valves is open and on the other is closed. This is specified in both the onboard documentation and the documentation of the manufacturer. But on Soyuz 11, … according to the onboard documentation the valve that prematurely opened ought to have had its manually operated shutter closed, and in the documentation of the manufacturer it should have been open.’’ Thus we see that valve No. 1 had state

‘closed-closed’ in the onboard documentation, and the crew did not simply forget or in a blind panic miss the order of the open/closed shutters. They firstly tried to close valve No. 2 because in their documentation its manually operated shutter was specified as being open, but in reality it was closed! As in the case of the Soyuz 1 tragedy, the technicians who prepared the spacecraft had not followed the rules!

Vladimir Shatalov, who was member of the State Commission which investigated the Soyuz 11 tragedy, reported some details of his inspections related to the lack of technical discipline in the installation of the valves:

The most likely cause was a design fault or omission during the installation of the valves during the assembly of the spacecraft. Both valves had to be torqued to the certain level by using a special tool, even though access to the valves was problematic. . . .

During an inspection, it was found that for both valves the screw had not been sufficiently tightened, and the ball was free to jiggle about. When they examined the valves on already flown craft, including my Soyuz 10, it was noticed that the screws were torqued differently. The required force was 50 kg, but some of the descent modules had valves torqued at 30 kg, some at only 20 kg, and one had valves whose screws were barely tightened! There were no spacecraft already flown in space with valves torqued to the proper degree. I could not believe this. Well, it was an accident waiting to happen!

In the book Two Sides of the Moon published in 2004, Aleksey Leonov states he was in the communication centre in Kaliningrad for the undocking. As the crew worked through the checklist, he advised them to close the shutters of both valves, but to remember to reopen one once the parachute had deployed.

“Make a note of it in your logbook,’’ I instructed them.

Although this deviated from the flight regulations, I had trained for a long time for the mission they were flying, and in my opinion this was the safest procedure. According to the flight programme the vents were [to start closed] and then open automatically once the parachute had deployed after re-entry. But I believed there was a danger, if this automatic procedure was followed, that the vents might open prematurely at too high an altitude and the spacecraft [would] depressurise.

It seems the crew did not follow my advice. Unfortunately, my intuition proved right. . . .

The loss of the Soyuz 11 cosmonauts was a terrible blow to the morale of the whole corps. Everyone understood that we were in the business of testing spacecraft, and the deaths of these three men undoubtedly saved the lives of later crews, because of the substantial modifications made, but their loss was a tragedy. Not only was I deeply saddened by what had happened, but I was frustrated, too. Had I been allowed to fly in their place I am sure my crew would have survived.

Leonov also wrote that he never told anyone that the crew had failed to follow his recommendation. Many years later, Vera Patsayeva, who worked in the TsNIIMash and had access to the radio exchanges, “recognised the crew’s tragic mistake of not following my advice and made that fact public’’. He tried to avoid the children of the lost crew: “I could not bear to look into their eyes. Even though it was not my fault, I blamed myself for what had happened. It was not until much later that the children learnt how desperately I had tried to avert the tragedy.’’[110]

Leonov also noted that the cardiogram data showed that Volkov, who remained in his couch, died 80 seconds after the decompression, Patsayev after 100 seconds and Dobrovolskiy after 2 minutes. Leonov’s claim that if he had been in command then his crew would not have succumbed to such a failure was contradicted by Kubasov in an interview with Novosti kosmonavtiki, who, after analysing what they would have done, had concluded that death was inevitable.

In contrast to Mishin, who insisted that the crew had been at fault, the strongest criticism of the cosmonauts’ action ever to be made by any representative of the Air Force was Leonov’s claim that they had not accepted his advice to close both valves and reopen one after the parachute had deployed. On the other hand, this advice was contrary to the rules. It would have protected against a valve opening prematurely, but to have required that a valve be opened manually would have placed the crew at risk of asphyxiation in the event of stronger than expected dynamic loads during the re­entry rendering them unconscious – it was, after all, to preclude this outcome that the valves were designed to work automatically. But it indicates that Leonov’s crew had trained to perform re-entry differently to their backups. Furthermore, in training Leonov seems not to have described this alternative procedure to Dobrovolskiy.

After the mission of Soyuz 10 Rukavishnikov was nominated as the flight engineer on Leonov’s Soyuz 12 crew, which was to make the second visit to the Salyut space station, but this crew was stood down when it became necessary to revise the design of the spacecraft after the deaths of the Soyuz 11 crew. He made two further space flights. The first occasion was on Soyuz 16, which was a six-day test in December 1974 in preparation for the joint mission with the Americans the following summer. The spacecraft was commanded by Anatoliy Filipchenko, and Rukavishnikov was the flight engineer. He trained as the commander of the backup crew for Soyuz 28. This was the first flight of the Interkosmos programme, and took a Czechoslovakian cosmonaut to Salyut 6. When he flew Soyuz 33 in April 1979 he became the first civilian to command a Soviet ship. His passenger was Georgiy Ivanov (Kakalov) of Bulgaria. The Igla rendezvous system locked onto Salyut 6 and began to navigate towards it, but when the range reduced to 4 km and they saw the station for the first time a six-second firing of the main rocket engine was cut short after three seconds! Rukavishnikov manually restarted the engine, but there was a terrible noise and it cut off again. On board the station, Vladimir Lyakhov and Valeriy Ryumin reported to the TsUP that they had observed sparks from the spacecraft’s propulsion module. The rendezvous had to be abandoned. This was the first and only failure of the main engine of a Soyuz. The crew were told to rest while the engineers on Earth decided what to do. The technical director of the flight was Yeliseyev, who precisely eight years earlier had flown with Rukavishnikov on Soyuz 10 in an attempt to dock with the original Salyut station!

Meanwhile in space, Rukavishnikov found it difficult simply to rest:

Throughout the night I told myself that as commander I was responsible not only for myself and the ship but also for Georgiy. I had to analyse all of the variables and be ready to answer any queries from Earth, or to execute any directions they provided.

As I was thinking, Georgiy asked: “Captain, shall we refresh a bit?’’

We carried Bulgarian foodstuffs as a gift for the Salyut 6 crew. “Let’s get out the presents,’’ I decided.

“Can we?’’

“Now we can.’’

We refreshed ourselves. I only had a little, but Georgiy really ate well.

“Off to sleep,’’ I told him. “We have to get good rest. Tomorrow we’ll be busy.’’

Meanwhile, Yeliseyev called the engine designers and experts in ballistics to the TsUP and together they thoroughly analysed the situation. Luckily, the Soyuz had a reserve braking engine (DKD). Unlike the main engine this could be fired just once, for the braking manoeuvre. But there was some concern, because its propellant and electrical lines were located close to those of the main engine, which had evidently suffered a serious problem. ft was to be hoped that the reserve engine had not been damaged. ft was possible that the engine would start and then cut off prematurely. ff it were to fire for less than 90 seconds, the crew would require to execute a series of firings of the small docking and orientation engines (DPO) to depart from orbit, but this would result in a return far from the planned landing site. At 6.46.49 p. m. on 12 April the reserve engine was activated to make a 188-second burn. Rukavishnikov inferred from the buzzing sound transmitted through the structure of the spacecraft that the engine was not operating at full power. After 188 seconds had elapsed and it failed to shut off automatically he took the decision to keep it running for another 25 seconds before he turned it off. As a result, the descent was steeper than normal, and followed a ballistic trajectory that subjected the occupants to peak deceleration load of 8 g. To everyone’s relief, the descent module landed safely at 7.35 p. m. at a point 320 km southeast of Dzhezkazgan in Kazakhstan. When he reflected upon his second failed attempt to dock with a Salyut, he joked: “the stations did not wish me on board’’.

fn April 1980 Rukavishnikov gained a master’s degree at the Moscow fnstitute of Engineering and Physics (MfFf). Meanwhile, he was training as commander of the backup crew for Soyuz T-3. fnitially, the objective of this flight was to undertake an extensive medical research programme on board Salyut 6, but this was altered to perform maintenance on the station to enable it to operate long enough to complete the fnterkosmos programme. Undeterred, Rukavishnikov focused his hopes on the forthcoming Salyut 7, and from September 1983 to February 1984 trained as flight engineer for the mission that was to carry the first fndian cosmonaut. However, with just two months remaining to the launch date he caught the flu, and thereby lost not only his opportunity to visit a space station but also the chance to become one of the few Soviets to fly four times in space. His unsympathetic colleagues joked that all Salyuts had a built in “anti-Rukavishnikov device’’.

On leaving the cosmonaut group in July 1978 Rukavishnikov became a deputy to the director of one of the departments of NPO Energiya, then retired in November 1999. fn 1981 he became president of the Soviet Cosmonautics Federation,[140] and in this role vigorously sought support from the Kremlin for a number of programmes. He also arranged for a medal to be given to an anonymous artist who had for many years painted artwork depicting the space programme. fn addition, he led the radio show On Space Orbits. Although he gave the appearance of having a very serious personality, those who knew him well said he was vibrant and always interesting to be with.

Two views of Nikolay Rukavishnikov (foreground) and Anatoliy Filipchenko in the Soyuz simulator.

“The stations did not wish me on board.” Rukavishnikov (foreground) and the Bulgarian cosmonaut Georgiy Ivanov made a dramatic return after their Soyuz 33 spacecraft suffered a main engine failure on the way to the Salyut 6 space station.

In the space of six years Rukavishnikov’s family suffered three tragedies. First his wife Nina died in 2000. Those closest to him gathered for his 70th birthday on 18 September 2002, but his memory was impaired by Alzheimer disease. Although he had survived one heart attack, the second was followed by pulmonary problems and he died in Burdenko hospital on 19 October 2002. He was buried in Ostankinsko Cemetery. Finally, in January 2006 his only child, Vladimir, succumbed to a severe illness and died aged only 41. He was buried alongside his father. Until the very end of his life Vladimir had unselfishly offered details of his father’s life to anyone who expressed an interest.

FINAL DAYS

In their first fortnight on board the Salyut station the cosmonauts had performed a large amount of scientific work and accumulated results to be returned to Earth for analysis by specialists. As the mission drew to a conclusion, the crew were in high spirits.

Day 16, Monday, 21 June

Work resumed with the Orion astrophysical observatory, this time with stars in the constellation of Serpens. Volkov was in charge of navigation. He spent a lot of time ‘sitting’ by a porthole on the station’s floor, ‘hunting’ for landmarks on the Earth and in the sky. Once Volkov had selected a landmark, Dobrovolskiy would orient and stabilise the station to enable this to be viewed. During the next orbit, Patsayev controlled the two telescopes of the Orion system, one on the exterior of the transfer compartment and the other affixed to a porthole inside it, to simultaneously record spectrograms of a single star in different sections of the ultraviolet spectrum.[89] The cosmonauts also continued measurements of gamma rays, the electrically charged nuclei in cosmic rays, and the intensity of free electrons in the orbital environment. At 2.21 p. m. Patsayev, who had started his career in meteorology, sent a greeting on behalf of the Salyut crew to the attendees of the National Meteorological Congress in Leningrad.

From Patsayev’s notebook:

21 June. The Moon looks the same as when viewed from Earth. Sometimes a round rainbow ‘spot’, or halo, is visible through a porthole on the opposite side to the Sun.

The boundaries of clouds can be determined by their shadows. Thicker

clouds are moving away in regular order, and cloud belts on the night side are visible in moonlight. …

The can openers are inadequate, often creating shards while opening the can. The seal of the rubbish bags is unsuitable, letting the stench out. …

It is essential to have a work site for performing repairs, a workbench with instruments. . . .

The station lights are inadequate. The inscriptions on the push buttons for switching on the food heater and the vacuum cleaner are barely visible. It is too dark at the work sites, especially at No. 3 [which was located adjacent to the large conical module housing the main scientific equipment].

Until her death in 2002, Vera Patsayeva collected information on the worst tragedy in the Soviet manned space programme – which claimed the life of her husband. An expert in remotely sensing the Earth from space, she worked at the TsNIIMash, which was located alongside the TsKBEM. She was close to many designers and specialists from the TsKBEM, including Yeliseyev and Raushenbakh, and had access to secret information on the mission. Courtesy of her daughter Svetlana, we can now publish for the first time a chapter from the notes of Vera Patsayeva entitled ‘Was there a chance for survival?’

I recall that several days before the end of the flight of the Soyuz 11 crew, I queried well-known cosmonaut K. P. Feoktistov: is it possible that there will be trouble during the landing? I always thought that on a space mission the most dangerous operations are at its start and its end. If anything happens to the hatch in orbit decompression will be instantaneous, and death inevitable for the crew in the cabin without pressures suits.

Konstantin Petrovich Feoktistov replied that the cabin is reliably protected from decompression. If the hatch is defective, the automated systems would not permit the ship to begin de-orbit. The ventilation system of the cabin can be opened to the environment automatically only during landing, when the external atmospheric pressure reaches a specific value. The cosmonauts can also open and close the shutters of the valves manually, but in space they are automatically closed. So he said there was no reason to worry. The Soyuz spacecraft had been repeatedly tested in landings and had proved itself to be reliable. Furthermore, he said that the reliability of the descent module made it unnecessary for a crew to wear pressure suits.

For a long time after the loss of my husband, I was unable to ask about the causes of the tragedy. I thought the official version of a random loss of cabin pressure explained everything.

But 15 years later I read an article by Vasiliy Pavlovich Mishin in which he said the Soyuz 11 crew had missed a chance to save themselves. They did not close the shutter of the ventilation system in time. Apparently they were unaware of how to act in this emergency. All they needed to have done was to close by hand the ventilation duct through which air was leaking to space. He laid the entire blame for the tragic outcome on the crew. In his opinion, the designers of the spacecraft and the mission planners were not at fault. The crew was lost due to their ignorance of a vitally important system of the ship, and because they were confused.

For me, it was very painful and offensive to read what the Chief Designer wrote about the tragedy. It is painful because he says that the cosmonauts had a chance to save themselves but failed to take it. And it is offensive to the cosmonauts, who are spoken of as if they are guilty for their own loss, and who have no opportunity to defend themselves.

So did they not know how to act? Or did they know, attempted to act, and were unsuccessful? For sure they realised what was happening, because they attempted to unfasten their seat belts in order to reach the source of the air leak. How much time did they have to resolve this? To achieve this was not an easy task in the active phase of the descent, when the dynamic loads pressed them into their seats. Even though the valve that was leaking air to space could be closed by hand, without pressure suits the time available to do so was not great. True, the Chief Designer asserts that it was sufficiently simply to raise a hand. . . . He adds that Viktor Patsayev perished attempting to turn the valve manually, but there was insufficient time for this. However, this proves that the cosmonauts knew the cause of the emergency.

What was the chance of the cosmonauts saving themselves? … I decided to find out. Firstly I wanted to understand in more detail what happened in the cabin on the night of 29/30 June 1971 when the de-orbit procedure began. And, in particular, I wanted to know whether the Chief Designer was correct in asserting that the tragedy could have been averted if the cosmonauts were better prepared or had not become confused. . . . On the other hand, was it an inevitable accident? A random event that can strike anyone, irrespective of his experience or preparedness? Or was it a question of fate? Perhaps there was some sort of a prior warning which the cosmonauts did not know how to recognise in preparing for the flight? Or was it the case that there were flaws in the making of the spacecraft of which the Chief Designer did not wish to talk? The cosmonauts lacked the suits that could have protected them in the event of the cabin losing pressure. Was this not an error in the design of the spacecraft?

What was the reason for the crew’s loss – their own errors, or the errors of the designers? What was to blame – confusion during the emergency, or the malfunction of a system that should not have failed in that manner?

So I began to question the specialists. I started with the designers because it was the Chief Designer who had put the blame on the cosmonauts. It was very complex to reach Konstantin Feoktistov by telephone and set a meeting to discuss the reason for the tragedy, but he readily accepted. Contrary to my expectation, he was very affable and agreed to answer my questions. Soon I felt free and comfortable with him. After asking permission to switch on my tape recorder, I asked what I considered to be the most important question: During the emergency, was there any realistic possibility of the cosmonauts avoiding catastrophe.

“They must, and they could! They had 30 seconds for that. It is sufficient to unfasten the seat belts and reach up to the valve of the ventilation system in order to close it by hand.’’

He explained to me how the valve was designed, and why its operation on this occasion caused the decompression of the descent module. It was to open automatically in the Earth’s atmosphere, but the unforeseen had occurred. It was ‘unseated’ at the time that the descent module separated. Apparently, there was a manufacturing defect.[111]

Feoktistov does not accept even the slightest possibility that the designers were responsible for the loss of the crew. The decision not to use pressure suits was correct, he thinks, since it facilitated three couches rather than two. Regarding safety, it had to be ensured by the control and manual blocking of the automation using the flight engineer’s command panel. Moreover, from the time of Voskhod, when cosmonauts first flew in space without pressure suits, the reliability of the descent module had proven itself by many flights.

Feoktistov also explained: ‘‘I place the moral risk above the physical risk. A cosmonaut always risks his life on a mission, because it is not possible to predict all possibilities.’’

Returning to my question, he repeats: ‘‘They wasted time! It was necessary to act immediately. The flight engineer was obliged to know how to act. He had 30 seconds available.’’

So the cosmonauts had 30 seconds, and a designer said that was sufficient to access the valve’s manually operated shutter and close this to halt the leak of air from the cabin.

The fact is that the ventilation system has two openings on opposite sides of the descent module. These are pyrotechnic valves.[112] They remain closed in space, and open automatically during the descent through the atmosphere. In addition to the pyrotechnic valves, each opening has a manual shutoff and a fan. One fan directs air into the cabin and the second draws it off. In orbit, when the modules of the ship are connected, both openings are protected by the frame of the orbital module. The operation of either of the pyrotechnic valves opens a passage to space which is about two centimetres in diameter. After midnight on 30 June, when the orbital module was jettisoned, one of the valves inadvertently opened.

The Chief Designer says that the cosmonauts heard the air whistling, and that Patsayev unfastened and reached up to halt the leak, but did not succeed. On the other hand, he said that the tragedy could have been avoided if only the crew had recalled in time the existence of the manually operated shutter. As noted, prior to initiating the descent the crew was to have confirmed that the manually operated shutters in the valves were set according to the flight instruction. Mishin states that it is unknown whether the cosmonauts did not know that they were to do this, or whether they simply forgot to do it.[113]

Did the cosmonauts forget, or did they not know? In any case, there is the flight instruction in which all of the actions of the crew prior to de-orbit are specified in detail. In addition, there is the Control Group in mission control. It would have ensured that the crew followed the flight instruction without missing out any steps.

In the log book of Soyuz 11, which is stored in NPO Energiya, is a page that lists the actions prior to the descent. In the instruction, it states that both at the cosmodrome prior to launch and before de-orbit the crew must verify the settings of the manually operated shutters in the valves of the ventilation system.

The records of the radio communications between the cosmonauts and the operators of the ground-based services at the cosmodrome confirm that they made this test prior to launch.

Arkadiy Ilyich Ostashev, the tester at the ground-based complex, said that in checking the Soyuz 11 spacecraft at the TsKBEM and in preparations at Baykonur a discrepancy was noted between the onboard documentation and that of the manufacturer about the ventilation valves. According to Ostashev, the operator instructed that the settings of the manual shutters of the valves be altered. As a result, the inscription ‘Closed’ meant that the shutter was open!

When the automatic shutter on a valve became unseated, a decompression was therefore inevitable.

In an attempt to explain why and how this error occurred in the onboard documentation, I turned to Viktor Petrovich Varshavskiy, who was our great authority for onboard documentation. During the flight of the Salyut station, he was the leader of the group that made the instructions for the cosmonauts, and oversaw their operation in orbit.

“When the first orbital station was launched, the mission control centre was not as it is today. There was no computer to process flight information. Communication with the cosmonauts was undertaken from Yevpatoriya. We were on duty 24 hours per day. Revisions into the instruction and the flight programme were made daily. Often the cosmonauts grew angry because we made so many changes and because sometimes these were inconsistent with the state of apparatus. In terms of organisation, at that time we weren’t ready to the operate such a station. The first design imperfections were revealed by Soyuz 10, when a problem in its docking mechanism prevented the docking with the station. That crew was obliged to return to Earth. We were allowed just a month to make the modifications to the docking system. Soyuz 11 was urgently transported to the cosmodrome to meet a schedule for launching to the station. There was very little time to draw up the new instruction and to compare it with the manufacturer’s documentation for that particular vehicle. That is how the divergence arose. And unfortunately when the cosmonauts began their preparations for the de-orbit manoeuvre, our ‘controllers’ forgot to remind them of the corrections to the onboard instruction.’’

At the moment of separating the modules after the de-orbit manoeuvre, the shock from the explosive bolts unseated the ball of the automated part of the valve above Dobrovolskiy’s couch, allowing air to escape. In addition to the whistle of the air, the signal horn warned of a decompression. Immediately, a thick fog was formed in the cabin. The crew had only seconds to analyse the situation, and act. It was necessary to unfasten the seatbelts, stand up and stop the leak. Unbeknownst to the crew, however, in the case of the valve above Patsayev ‘Open’ meant closed, and for the valve above Dobrovolskiy ‘Closed’ meant the automated shutter was open. They had to act on the indications. However, the barographic data shows that the pressure fell so rapidly that after 13 seconds they were rendered ineffective.

Thirteen seconds to eternity. Was this sufficient? If the situation is regular (as cosmonauts say) then it is a lot. But it is far less if the situation is out of control – as it was to men exposed to the vacuum of space without pressure suits.

Gennadiy Fyodorovich Isayev, who for many years observed and analysed the actions of cosmonauts in space, answered my question very emotionally.

‘‘It is not possible to raise the question in that way! What is enough time, and what is insufficient time? There were only a few seconds available! This was, as we say, a non-standard situation. There was no standard solution. A cosmonaut performs his work in accordance with instruction, and such work

is called regular. He cannot train for uncertainty. In a non-standard situation time is required to evaluate the situation and devise a solution. This time can be completely different to the one calculated by training instructors on Earth. The tragedy of Soyuz 11 clearly shows that there were flaws in the project. The cosmonauts could not control the automation in the most important system protecting their lives, so they could not immediately counter the malfunction. Starting with the first Voskhod flight, the spacecraft designers deprived the cosmonauts of recovery facilities in the case of a cabin decompression. It is the inevitable result of the generally inadequate relationship of society to the man. It is the philosophy of the totalitarian system in which we lived.”

In 1971 Skella Aleksandrovna Bugrova worked for the Control Group in Yevpatoriya. She recalls that the ‘sliding’ circadian rhythm imposed on the first Salyut crew had a serious effect on their health and relationships with the people on Earth. With added fatigue and the influence of weightlessness, they became spiritually and physically overloaded. ‘‘And we on Earth could not manage to analyse the flight information. As a result, we were slow to respond to the questions and observations of the crew, which irritated them. In our memories, even today, are the last conversations with them before the descent. If we had not rushed the crew to prepare for the descent, if only the flight director had had the courage to postpone the undocking from Salyut in order to fully investigate the absence of the signal from the hatch, and then reviewed once again the status of the life support system, then maybe the tragedy would have been avoided.’’