Category Salyut – The First Space Station

In contrast to the low priority assigned to the military space station projects at the overcommitted TsKBEM, the Ministry of Defence encouraged the development of Chelomey’s Almaz. Although this project suffered protracted delays, by 1969 it was the only real Soviet space station project. It is true that there were ideas for joint endeavours in space station development between Mishin’s team in Kaliningrad and Chelomey’s in Reutov, but owing to the poor relationship between the two Chief Designers no one at the TsKBEM wished to approach Mishin officially to propose a formal collaboration. Even the Kremlin recognised that rivalry between the bureaus had seriously damaged the Soviet space programme. Once, even the mighty Ustinov said that Mishin and Chelomey behaved just as if the bureaus were their personal ‘‘principalities’’. Although the Kremlin could have ordered strategic integration, in practice it did little to force the bureaus to collaborate.

In the meantime, the Americans had been very busy. In August 1965 NASA had assigned a group of experts the task of defining a programme of long-term scientific research in Earth orbit using Apollo hardware. This drew up a phased programme that would lead to a scientific space station. Over the years most of these projects were dismissed, but in the spring of 1969 it was announced that a ‘Sky Laboratory’ (Skylab) would be launched in 1972. It would be a 90-tonne giant, and with a length of 36 metres and a diameter of 6 metres it would have a volume of 400 cubic metres – four times that of Almaz. The pace of the American space programme renewed the Kremlin’s concern. It was clear that the USSR had lost the race to land a man on the Moon, work on the Almaz space station was seriously behind schedule, and all that the TsKBEM had to offer was the Soyuz spacecraft. The Soviet response to the American plan would therefore have to be quick and efficient.

In August 1969 a group of designers led by Boris Raushenbakh, the TsKBEM Department Chief responsible for the development of spacecraft guidance systems, put it to Boris Chertok, their boss, that a propellant tank of the Soyuz rocket should be converted into a space station. It was estimated that this could be done within a year, and could be launched before Almaz – and before Skylab, of course. As the Chief Designer, Mishin was the top man. His First Deputy was Sergey Okhapkin,

who was in charge of the development of rocket systems, including the N1 launcher. Next was Konstantin Bushuyev, the Deputy Chief Designer for the development of unmanned and manned spacecraft, including the Soyuz spacecraft and its L1 and L3 variants. Deputy Chief Designer Chertok was the fourth man, and his responsibility was the development of guidance, control and electrical systems for launchers and spacecraft. Chertok was one of the pioneers of Soviet rocketry, having worked with Korolev and the other leading Soviet rocket designers in analysing the design of the V-2 rockets that were confiscated from the Nazis. Raushenbakh had left Keldysh’s tutelage to join Chertok’s group in the early days of OKB-1, and was one of the few top Soviet spacecraft designers whose name was known in the West. His proposal was to modify a tank to accommodate various systems from a Soyuz spacecraft, and to install solar panels, a docking mechanism and a hermetic tunnel to provide access from a docked Soyuz. The fact that this structure was to be launched by the Proton rocket meant that its mass could be no greater than that of Almaz, but it would be much simpler.[22]

Initially, Chertok hesitated. His main concern was the limitations implicit in the systems developed for the Soyuz spacecraft. An additional issue was that a vehicle having three times the mass of the Soyuz would require more powerful engines to maintain its orbit and to control its orientation. Furthermore, this propulsion system would require to be able to support a mission of many months, rather than a brief Soyuz flight. Chertok consulted his old friend Aleksey Isayev. In 1944 Isayev had been appointed the Chief Designer of OKB-2 (in 1966 renamed Himmash), and had worked with Chertok and Korolev in Germany. He was now the leading designer of rocket engines for both unmanned and manned spacecraft. When Chertok explained the TsKBEM’s idea, Isayev said that he had already developed such a propulsion system for Chelomey’s Almaz. The logical way to proceed would be to combine the proven systems of the Soyuz spacecraft with those already developed for the Almaz station. Thus was born an idea with dramatic implications for the future of world cosmonautics.

Interestingly, only a small group were involved in originating this project. Taking the lead was Konstantin Feoktistov. As a Department Chief in Bushuyev’s group, he was of similar rank to Raushenbakh. He had been involved from the earliest days in the design of the Vostok spacecraft, and in return for leading the modification of that capsule to accommodate three cosmonauts he had been assigned to the crew of the first Voskhod flight in October 1964. The Soyuz spacecraft was very much one of his ‘offspring’. On hearing of the proposal to convert a propellant tank into a station, Feoktistov asked: why start with an empty tank? There were several Almaz prototypes standing idle in Chelomey’s factory in Fili. It would be better to modify one of these.

However, Chelomey was sure to oppose any attempt to requisition his spacecraft, the Ministry of Defence and Minister Afanasyev would reject any further delays in Almaz development and, of course, Mishin would not appreciate a proposal to use a

competitor’s hardware in a TsKBEM project. But Feoktistov and Chertok thought differently. Their strategy was to avoid anyone who might raise an objection, and to go straight to Dmitriy Ustinov, who was on the Central Committee of the Kremlin and was in overall control of the Soviet space programme. They were sure he would understand the strategic implications of the idea. However, it was no simple matter to contact Ustinov. Normally such an approach would be made by Mishin, as head of the bureau. But Mishin was in Kyslovodsk, taking his annual leave; and anyway he would object. In Mishin’s absence, Bushuyev was one of the few people with the authority to seek a meeting with Ustinov.

Feoktistov recalls: “Several times Bushuyev, Chertok and I reviewed this matter. Chertok, and his engineers who’d worked on the development of guidance systems, supported the idea of moving immediately. But Bushuyev hesitated because Mishin would be against the idea, and we would not have the support of our own bureau.’’

Someone suggested that Bushuyev should call Ustinov and ask for a meeting, but Bushuyev did not wish to take such an important step without the knowledge of his bureau chief. However, Feoktistov had a reputation for being disobedient, and he proposed that he call Ustinov. Intriguingly, although Feoktistov was not a member of Communist Party, he readily arranged a meeting with one of the most influential men in the Central Committee.

Ustinov was aware that even under the most optimistic scenario, Almaz would not be ready until early 1972. If everything went to plan Almaz would beat Skylab, but if the launch were to fail, or if the station were to experience a problem that would prevent a crew from boarding it, then the Soviet Union would again trail behind the Americans. Another issue was that as a military project, the design and operation of the Almaz station should remain a secret. Skylab was a scientific project funded by NASA. If the first Soviet space station could be portrayed as a civilian space project, and it was given lavish coverage in the newspapers, then it would serve to mask the true role of the subsequent Almaz stations – about which much less information would be released. That is, to launch a scientific station first would serve as a maskirovka, or deception, designed to hide the real project. Ustinov fully appreciated this point. He invited Chertok, Bushuyev, Feoktistov, Raushenbakh and Okhapkin to his office on 5 December 1969. Also present were Leonid Smirnov, who was Aleksey Kosygin’s deputy for space matters and chairman of the VPK since 1963, Afanasyev, Keldysh and some of Ustinov’s officials. As Mishin was on vacation it was reasonable that he should not be invited, and Chelomey, being in hospital, was conveniently unavailable.

In advance of the meeting, the TsKBEM people agreed to let Feoktistov talk first. His presentation was very convincing. It would be possible to equip the core of one of Chelomey’s stations with the solar panels of the Soyuz spacecraft, together with its guidance and command systems. In approximately a year’s time, Feoktistov said, the Soviet Union would have the world’s first space station. Chertok then noted that the systems of the Soyuz spacecraft were considered to be reliable because they had been tested during 14 unmanned and manned orbital flights. The development of a docking system incorporating an internal tunnel was underway. Keldysh asked how the construction of such a space station would interfere with the development of the N1-L3 lunar programme. Okhapkin said that the two projects were separate, and the designers involved in the lunar programme would not be needed for the station. Of course, Ustinov knew that both Soviet lunar programmes were under review. After the success of Apollo 8 in December 1968 the L1 circumlunar project launched by a Proton rocket had lost its purpose, and the N1-L3 lunar landing was contingent on successfully introducing the N1 launch vehicle – and after two spectacular failures in January and July 1969 some people were beginning to doubt that this would ever fly. And then, of course, the Americans had already won the race to the Moon.

Ustinov was enthusiastic about the space station conversion, not only because if it worked it would demonstrate that the Soviet Union was ahead of the Americans in this aspect of manned spaceflight, and not only to provide a maskirovka for Almaz, but also because Ustinov had never liked how Chelomey had exploited the personal support of Khrushchov and his links with the Kremlin and the Ministry of Defence

to expand his activities into manned spacecraft. Ustinov wanted all such work to be undertaken by a single design bureau. Converting the core of a military Almaz into a civilian space station would not only enable the Soviet Union to once again claim leadership in space, it would also put Chelomey in his place!

The meeting ended with the decision to immediately prepare a project time-scale, and by the end of January 1970 to issue a decree to endorse the plan. Although the TsKBEM rebels were surprised by the ready acceptance of their proposal, they had (to coin a phrase) been ‘pushing an open door’. Brezhnyev accepted the importance of space stations for national prestige. In fact, he had referred to them several times in speeches which he made that autumn, and on 22 October, in welcoming home the crews of the ‘group flight’ of Soyuz 6, 7 and 8, he had asserted that the USSR had a broad space programme which was planned years in advance and would unfold in a logical manner. The strategy was to downplay American successes and not to admit Soviet failures. This was why the USSR was only one of two European states (the other being Albania) not to run ‘live’ TV coverage of the first manned lunar landing. In order to convey the impression that the Soviet space programme was following a grand plan, Brezhnyev had spoken of ‘‘space cosmodromes” from which men would set off on journeys to the planets. Obviously, however, this plan would unfold by a series of ever more ambitious steps, the first of which would be relatively modest. By the end of November 1969 Academicians Keldysh and Boris Petrov had written in newspaper articles that space stations would permit unprecedented monitoring of meteorology, oceanology, ecology and aspects of the economy; they would serve as laboratories to study physics, geophysics, advanced technology and astronomy; they would serve as factories; and later they would test systems needed by the promised interplanetary spaceships.

DOS IS BORN

Although Mishin and Chelomey were united in their opposition to the plan to create a hybrid Long-Duration Orbital Station (DOS) by using Almaz and Soyuz systems, the Kremlin’s directive was firm. Chelomey was satisfied to ensure that this project would not further delay Almaz, but Mishin was furious at what he referred to as the “conspiracy”. In one meeting Mishin threatened: “If I hear that anybody else apart from these two – Bushuyev and Feoktistov – occupies himself with this DOS, I will send him to hell.’’ He opposed the DOS effort not only because his staff had gone behind his back to initiate it, but also out of concern that, despite assurances to the contrary, it would jeopardise the N1-L3 programme. Even once it was underway he never really endorsed the project, and at times he openly criticised it.

Not only were the TsKBEM designers eager to develop the hybrid space station, so too were the engineers in Fili who had spent five years designing the systems for Almaz and wished to find out how well they performed in space. In fact, Chelomey himself was not very popular in Fili. Initially, Fili had been an independent design bureau (OKB-23) headed by the famous Chief Designer Vladimir Myasishchev, and between 1951 and I960 had created the successful M-4 and 3M strategic bombers. While it was designing the M-50 jet bomber and a manned rocket plane, Chelomey, with the support of Khrushchov, but against the will of the Air Force, had drawn the bureau into his own organisation, naming it Branch No. 1. Myasishchev had gone to the Moscow Aviation Institute. The DOS project provided an opportunity for Fili to regain a degree of autonomy, and Viktor Bugayskiy, who was in charge there, was keen to collaborate with his TsKBEM counterparts.

In fact, the first task was to establish a genuine management structure that would integrate the Kaliningrad and Fili design teams. In December 1969, shortly after the meeting with Ustinov, Okhapkin, Bushuyev and Chertok asked Mishin to nominate Yuriy Semyonov as the Leading Designer for the DOS programme. Semyonov had participated in the design of the Soyuz spacecraft and managed the L1 circumlunar programme, whose cancellation was imminent. Semyonov was also a son-in-law of Andrey Kirilenko, the fourth man in the Kremlin’s hierarchy. Although it is only a supposition, it is possible that Ustinov played a role in the nomination; the rationale being that someone with Semyonov’s connections ought to be able to counter any attempts by either Mishin or Chelomey to undermine the rapid pace set for the DOS development. On 31 December the basic organisational documents were drawn up. In January 1970 Mishin officially appointed Semyonov and three deputies: Dmitriy Slesarev was responsible for modifying the Soyuz for use as a space station ferry;[23] Valeriy Ryumin was responsible for the station’s systems; and Viktor Inelaur was responsible for the guidance apparatus. Later, Arvid Pallo was appointed as a fourth deputy. Also, Mishin nominated his own deputies as general managers of the entire programme. Bushuyev, assisted by Feoktistov, was responsible for the development of all aspects of the programme. Under their direct control were Pavel Tsybin, who

managed the development of the Soyuz, and Leonid Gorshkov, the designer of the Orbital Block (i. e. the station itself). In addition, Chertok led the guidance group, with Raushenbakh and Igor Yurasov as deputies; Lev Vilnitskiy was responsible for the docking systems; Vladimir Pravetskiy was responsible for life support systems; Oleg Surgachov was responsible for thermal regulation systems; Yakov Tregub and his deputy, Boris Zelenshchikov, were responsible for the testing of all the systems, cosmonaut training and mission control; Gherman Semyonov was to supervise the preparation of the station for shipment to the cosmodrome; and Aleksey Abramov and Vladimir Karashtin were to manage the launch preparations. In Fili, Bugayskiy nominated Vladimir Pallo as his deputy for the DOS project. This was a wise choice, because when Semyonov added Arvid Pallo to his team the two brothers were well placed to coordinate joint activities. All the leading people of the DOS project have been named here because, by managing the activities of thousands of engineers, technicians and others, they defined the basis for not only the Soviet manned space programme but also, in the long term, the world’s manned space programme.

On 9 February 1970 the Central Committee and the Council of Ministers issued decree No. 105-41. It was one of the most important decrees in the history of space station development. One of its directives was that all pertinent documentation and all existing hardware, including Almaz cores, be transferred to the DOS programme.

After studying the design documents, Feoktistov drew up the specifications of the station to maximally exploit the capabilities of the Proton launcher: it was to have a maximum diameter of 4.15 metres, a length of 14 metres and an initial mass of 19 tonnes. With a volume of almost 100 cubic metres, which was almost ten times that of the Soyuz, it would be able to accommodate comfortable facilities for the crew,

consumables for a long mission and a wide variety of apparatus. One of the design requirements was that most of the built-in apparatus must be accessible to the crew for maintenance, repairs or replacement. In fact, this requirement became one of the greatest design challenges. The complexity of the DOS station is evident from the fact that it had 980 instruments (according to another source 1,300) connected by in excess of 1,000 cables that had a total length of 350 km and a mass of 1.3 tonnes!

The next big decision was the maximum possible operating life of the first station, designated DOS-1. This would depend on the altitude of the orbit, the available fuel and the power supply. Although the upper atmosphere is exceedingly rarefied, if the station were to start off in the range 200-250 km the drag would cause the orbit to decay at an increasing rate, until the station re-entered and was destroyed. It would be necessary to fire the rocket engine periodically to maintain the desired altitude. It was calculated that it would be necessary to use about 3 tonnes of fuel annually to maintain DOS-1 at an altitude of 300 km, 1 tonne at 350 km, and a mere 200 kg at 400 km. A higher orbit was therefore desirable to maximise the operating life of the station. However, the higher the station’s altitude, the more fuel the Soyuz would use to make a rendezvous. Furthermore, a higher altitude would expose the crew to more intense space radiation. The next big issue was the total period of occupancy. This would be dependent on the reserves of air, water and food. Since one man would consume about 10 kg of materials per day, it was decided to load the station with sufficient stores to support three men for three months – a period that would be accumulated by a succession of crews. It was on the basis of such analyses that the documentation for the DOS-1 station was drawn up in February 1970.

The first meeting between the TsKBEM and TsKBM experts was in March 1970. Feoktistov presented the technical specifications to the Fili team. Then Semyonov outlined the structure of the programme, its management, and the responsibilities of not only the TsKBEM and the TsKBM but also their subsidiary factories. The M. V. Khrunichev Machine Building Plant (ZIKh), which the TsKBM managed, was to be responsible for building the DOS stations and the Proton rockets that would launch them. The Plant for Experimental Machine Building (ZEM) had been part of the TsKBEM since 1966, and its role would be to test the station’s apparatus. Because each institution had its own structure, work philosophy, methodology and standards, the task of coordination was formidable. If prior experience was anything to go by, designing, developing, testing and launching a space station would take at least five years, but the DOS managers set out to do so in a period of approximately one year!

The first challenge was to arrange the transfer of the Almaz cores to the TsKBEM. Several days after the first meeting between the two engineering teams, Semyonov went to see Chelomey in Reutov. It was a difficult and strained meeting. Although Semyonov was armed with the Kremlin’s decree, Chelomey accused the TsKBEM of “stealing’’ his work. Only after a telephone call to Afanasyev was Semyonov able to persuade Chelomey to transfer four Almaz cores.[24]

The first DOS space station and a docked Soyuz ferry: (1) rendezvous antennas; (2) solar panels; (3) radio-telemetry antennas; (4) portholes; (5) the Orion astrophysical telescope; (6) the atmospheric regeneration system; (7) a movie camera; (8) a photo camera; (9) biological research equipment; (10) a food refrigeration unit; (11) crew sleeping bags; (12) water tanks; (13) waste collectors; (14) attitude control engines; (15) propellant tanks for the KTDU-66 main engine; (16) the sanitary and hygienic systems; (17) micrometeoroid panel; (18) exercise treadmill (not shown, but it was aft of the large conical housing for scientific equipment viewing through the floor); (19) the crew’s work table; (20) the main control panel; (21) oxygen tanks; (22) the periscope visor of the Soyuz descent module; (23) the KTDU-35 main engine of the Soyuz spacecraft. The conical housing for the main scientific equipment is not shown.

The DOS-1 station will be described in detail later, and here it is necessary only to explain how it differed from Almaz. The transfer compartment housing the docking system was at the front of DOS-1, rather than at the rear. Whereas on Almaz there was a hermetic tunnel through the unpressurised propulsion module, in the case of DOS-1 the docking system provided access to a small compartment that had been added to the front of the Almaz structure. On the exterior of this compartment were two solar panels of the type developed for the Soyuz spacecraft. A hatch led to the compartment which combined the Almaz crew and work compartments.[25] As in the case of Almaz, the rear of the main compartment was dominated by a large conical housing, but now the apparatus was for scientific rather than military observations. Another change was that the propulsion system developed for Almaz was discarded, and a system based on that of the Soyuz spacecraft was affixed in its place. This unit carried a second pair of solar panels.

The following DOS-1 systems were taken from Soyuz spacecraft:

• guidance and orientation

• solar panels

• Zarya radio-equipment

• RTS-9 telemetry system

• Rubin radio-control system

• command radio lines

• central post and main control panel

• Igla rendezvous and docking, and

• regenerators for oxygen.

In addition, the system for controlling the complex was taken from the Soyuz, but it was modified to take account of the station’s greater mass. The thermal regulation system had also to be upgraded. These were in-house systems to the TsKBEM. The

Sirius system for information analysis was supplied by Sergey Darevskiy’s Special Design Bureau. It was based on the Soyuz command display, and on DOS-1 it was on the left-hand side of the main control panel, in front of the commander’s seat. It provided the following indicators:

• the pressure in the fuel tanks

• the distance and speed of the station relative to an approaching spacecraft during rendezvous and docking

• the voltage and current in the electrical power system

• the environmental parameters inside the station

• onboard clocks, and

• a globe to enable the cosmonauts to readily determine the position of the station in relation to terrestrial geography.

The development of the various scientific and medical apparatus also challenged the designers. Never before had so many scientific instruments been installed in one spacecraft: this apparatus weighed 1.5 tonnes in total. Most of it was designed and developed outside the TsKBEM, in coordination with the Academy of Sciences. For example, the Orion ultraviolet telescope was devised by the Byurakan Observatory and the OST-1 solar telescope by the Crimean Observatory. For each instrument on the station, the mission planners had to develop a programme of experiments for the crew to conduct.

Everyone involved in the project worked without holidays in order to build, test and launch the first space station within a period of one year! The project itself, and all the basic systems, were developed by Kaliningrad. Design schemes and system diagrams were prepared by Fili. The manufacturing process was organised by ZEM, where Ryumin and Pallo, Semyonov’s deputies, worked alternate shifts around the clock. The station and its mockups (including wooden ones) were fabricated in the Khrunichev Plant. The final testing of the station was planned and conducted by the TsKBEM.

Even more remarkably, this coordinated effort was conducted without the support – and indeed against the wishes – of the leaders of the two design bureaus: Mishin and Chelomey!

In December 1970, after less than a year, Khrunichev completed the construction of the DOS-1 station. It was transferred to the TsKBEM for further testing, and then delivered to the Baykonur cosmodrome in March 1971.

Specific references

1. Chertok, B. Y., Rockets and People – The Moon Race, Book 4. Mashinostrenie, Moscow, 2002, pp. 239-249 (in Russian).

2. Afanasyev, I. B., Baturin, Y. M. and Belozerskiy, A. G., The World Manned Cosmonautics. RTSoft, Moscow, 2005, pp. 224-226 (in Russian).

3. Afanasyev, I. B., Unknown Spacecrafts. Znaniye, 12/1991 (in Russian).

4. Semyonov, Y. P., ed, Rocket and Space Corporation Energiya named after S. P. Korolev. 1996, pp. 264-269 (in Russian).

OPTIONS

While the engineers at the TsKBEM were modifying the docking mechanism of the Soyuz to eliminate the problem which had prevented Soyuz 10 from linking up with Salyut, on 2 May 1971 Vasiliy Mishin proposed to General Kamanin a revision to the programme. Owing to concern that Salyut’s drogue might have been damaged, he proposed that the next mission should carry in its orbital module two spacesuits, identical to those used for the external transfer during the Soyuz 4/5 mission. Once the rendezvous had been accomplished, the spacecraft would ‘park’ close alongside Salyut and one of the cosmonauts would don his suit and exit the orbital module in order to inspect the station’s docking mechanism. He would then cross the gap and, by gripping onto a series of handles on the surface of the station, make his way along to the area of the science module and open the cover that had failed to release immediately after the station reached orbit. As part of this scheme, Mishin proposed that only two cosmonauts should be assigned to the next mission, rather than three. Although he did not mention names, he probably had in mind Leonov and Kubasov, the commander and flight engineer of the second DOS crew. Both were admirably suited to the assignment since Leonov was the first man ever to make a spacewalk and Kubasov, having been Yeliseyev’s backup for Soyuz 5, had undertaken training for such activity.

But this was simply unrealistic. First, the TsPK could not prepare cosmonauts for so complex a spacewalk in a time as short as one month. Second, Gay Severin from the OKB Zvezda that had designed the EVA suits and airlock facilities did not have two spacesuits available. Indeed, the inclusion of the exterior hatch on the transfer compartment of DOS-1 was not to enable spacewalks to be undertaken, for none were planned, but was forward planning for the stations that would follow. In late 1970 Kamanin had argued with Mishin to carry at least one EVA suit on board the station, but there had been insufficient time to install the ancillary apparatus and, as a result, Mishin had gone so far as to delete the tanks that would have carried the air to replenish the compartment after a spacewalk. On 3 May, at the meeting with the

cosmonauts and trainers at the TsPK, Kamanin directed that Leonov, Kubasov and Kolodin should train according to the initial plan. Although there would be time for Dobrovolskiy, Volkov and Patsayev to train for external work, this was ruled out as the limitations of the 7K-T variant of the Soyuz meant that to accommodate a pair of spacesuits its crew would have to be reduced to two cosmonauts.[40]

On 7 May Mishin suggested to the Council of Chief Designers that regardless of the inability of Soyuz 10 to dock, it should still be possible for two crews to occupy DOS-1. It was decided that testing the modified docking system must be finished by 18 May and that the launch of Soyuz 11 should be scheduled for 4 June. The crew would be Aleksey Leonov (37), commander; Valeriy Kubasov (36), flight engineer; and Pyotr Kolodin (41), research engineer. Their assignment was to spend between 30 and 45 days on board Salyut. Then Soyuz 12 would be launched on 18 July with Georgiy Dobrovolskiy (43), commander; Vladislav Volkov (36), flight engineer; and Viktor Patsayev (38), research engineer. The duration of their mission would be determined by the resources remaining available to the station and the outcome of the first mission.

At the meeting of the Military-Industrial Commission (VPK) on 11 May, Mishin explained what had been learned from the failure of Soyuz 10 to dock with Salyut, and how the docking system had been modified for Soyuz 11. With the support of Kerimov he proposed postponing the launch of Soyuz 11 to 14 June and advancing

Options 115

Kubasov (standing, left), Leonov and Kolodin at the TsPK in Zvyozdniy. General Nikolay Kuznyetsov, the commander of the Cosmonaut Training Centre, stands on the right. (From the private collection of Rex Hall)

Soyuz 12 to 15 July, with each flight lasting 30 days. But Kamanin refused. If, as he had been advised, the station’s resources would last no longer than the end of July or start of August, this would put the final crew at risk. He suggested that the main objectives of the Soyuz 11 mission should be to successfully dock and gain entry to the station; the duration of the mission was a secondary issue that should be decided by how events progressed. The majority of the commission, including Smirnov, its chairman, agreed that the key issue was that the cosmonauts should enter the station. In addition, Smirnov said: “There is no pressure on you regarding the date of launch, and the 30-day duration is not essential. Nevertheless, we must ensure the safety of the cosmonauts. Conduct the necessary calculations, checks and tests. If you have full confidence that the flight will have satisfactory results, report this to the Central Committee. You know that comrades Brezhnyev and Kosygin will consent to this mission only after you have assured its success.’’ The next day the ballistics experts said that 6 June was the best launch date in terms of illumination conditions during the docking – if something were to prevent the docking, the spacecraft would be able to make a daylight landing. The maximum duration that would permit a landing at dawn was 25 days. In view of Kamanin’s reservations, Mishin accepted 6 June as the launch date.

When Kamanin was asked by his boss, General Kutakhov, about the risk of the Soyuz 11 crew being lost, he replied: “We wouldn’t lose the crew, but f don’t have a firm conviction of a successful docking, cosmonaut transfer into the station and its activation.” Kamanin outlined the potential sources of difficulty, including the poor visibility from the Soyuz, a failure of the automated systems and the strength of the docking mechanism. But he rejected Kutakhov’s suggestion that a letter be sent to the Central Committee to say that the Air Force had reservations as to the likelihood of the forthcoming flight succeeding. Kamanin said: “f will do everything possible to avoid losing the crew, and to make possible the accomplishment of their task, but the Chief Designer and the Strategic Rocket Forces must be held responsible for the reliability of the technology.’’

On 14 May, at the traditional pre-flight meeting with Ustinov at the Kremlin, the main message to the TsKBEM was similar to that from Smirnov: “Launch Soyuz 11 only if you are certain that the preparations are satisfactory. We are not rushing you. The State Commission will set the final date.’’ With these words, Ustinov carefully washed his hands of any responsibility for the potential failure of the mission.

STAR TOWN

Zvyozdniy Gorodok (Star Town), home of the Cosmonaut Training Centre (TsPK) where Soviet military cosmonauts live and train for space missions, is located in a wood of 100-year-old birch trees in the Shchelkovo area about 40 km northeast of Moscow and 10 km east of Kaliningrad.

In 1958 General Nikolay Kamanin became Deputy Chief of the Soviet Air Force. He was responsible for the selection of all military cosmonauts, their training and nomination for space missions. He was also on the military commission that decided to build Zvyozdniy, and when construction started in the early 1960s all decrees relating to its development required his signature.

Kamanin maintained a good association with his boss, Commander of the Air Force Marshal Konstantin Vershinin, but his relationship with Sergey Korolev was often tense. They got on well during the years of the Vostok flights, but in 1963 OKB-1 set out to modify this capsule to carry up to three cosmonauts and this led to a conflict. Kamanin wished the Voskhod cosmonauts to be drawn exclusively from the Air Force, as in the case of Vostok, but Korolev wished to give his engineers the opportunity to fly in order to personally assess their designs. Korolev got his way for the first Voskhod mission, on which Air Force cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov flew as commander, Konstantin Feoktistov flew as engineer, and Boris Yegorov, a physician whose father was a friend of Korolev’s, flew to investigate the symptoms of ‘space sickness’ that were reported by Vostok cosmonaut Gherman Titov.

When Vasiliy Mishin succeeded Korolev upon the latter’s death in January 1966, the conflict between Zvyozdniy and Kaliningrad became even more intense. And when in August 1966 the Kremlin granted Mishin permission to recruit civilians for the L1 and L3 lunar programmes, Mishin argued that the TsKBEM (as OKB-1 had by then become) should have its own training facility – a proposal that was resisted by Kamanin. However, as the TsPK grew, Kamanin faced management problems. By the mid-1960s the manned space programme was based on the Soyuz spacecraft whose variants were to support a variety of projects, including autonomous flights,

circumlunar and the lunar landing missions, developing techniques for rendezvous and docking, a variety of military tasks, and serving as a ferry for a space station. Appropriate simulators had to be installed at the TsPK, and training procedures and methodologies developed. The installation of the first Soyuz simulator in late 1966 coincided with the arrival of the first cosmonaut-engineers from the TsKBEM. As there were not yet simulators for either the circumlunar L1 or the military Soyuz-VI, the civilians joined the military cosmonauts in training for Soyuz missions. The L3 simulator was an even less likely prospect, in part because Mishin hoped to squeeze the Air Force out of the lunar landing programme and to build the simulator at the TsKBEM. Many of the problems that Kamanin faced were beyond his control. To make matters worse, the death of Yuriy Gagarin while flying a MiG – 15 in training in March 1968 reflected poorly on the TsPK. Both Kamanin and General Nikolay Kuznyetsov, who had been appointed as Commander of the Cosmonaut Training Centre in 1963, felt that they were partly to blame for the accident.

Furthermore, Kamanin suffered from the diminishment of his Khrushchov-era allies in the Ministry of Defence and the Air Force. In 1967 Rodion Malinovskiy was replaced as Minister for Defence by Marshal Andrey Grechko, who had not been a supporter of manned space flights. In 1968 the TsPK gained orbital, military, and lunar training facilities, and was expanded to include engineering and medical departments. It was also renamed the Yu. A. Gagarin Test and Research Centre for Space Flight. For almost 11 years Kamanin had worked closely with Vershinin, but Grechko wanted his own man running the Air Force, and in 1969 he replaced Vershinin with General Pavel Kutakhov, who in turn decided to replace Kamanin as soon as possible.

It was in this intense atmosphere that the crews for the DOS-1 programme were nominated.

After a brief rest, hunting near the town of Vladimir and fishing on the Bear Lakes to the west of Zvyozdniy, on 21 May both crews flew to Baykonur with Kamanin and Beregovoy. fn the Assembly-Test Building (MfK) the engineers had installed a docking command panel to Soyuz 11, and the cosmonauts rehearsed using it – they now had control of all docking operations until the final stage. fn the meantime, one of the fgla rendezvous system units failed during tests. ft was replaced, but the TsKBEM managers were concerned about the system’s reliability. Then both crews returned to Moscow for their final training at the TsPK. Although the crews had flown to Baykonur in separate aircraft, Beregovoy decided to extend his visit to the cosmodrome and they had to break with precedent by returning in a single aircraft. At the TsPK Gubaryev, Sevastyanov and Voronov (the third crew) were already a month into intensive training. However, Sevastyanov had to break off in order to go to the Air and Space Exhibition in Paris, leaving Gubaryev and Voronov to train alone. If all went to plan, after backing up Soyuz 12 this crew would be the first to visit DOS-2 in the new year.

Although the launch date for Soyuz 11 was only a few weeks off, much remained to be done. Not only had Leonov’s crew to fly somewhat earlier than expected, they had also to train to use the revised docking system. The spacecraft was loaded with an additional 10 kg of fuel to allow extended docking manoeuvres, and as a further precaution its resources during autonomous flight were increased from three to four days.

The two crews flew to Baykonur in separate planes on 28 May, accompanied by a large number of experts from Moscow and members of the State Commission. The crew of Soyuz 10 were also present to assist with the final preparations. Two days later, on 30 May, the cosmonauts celebrated Leonov’s 37th birthday, and on 1 June they marked Dobrovolskiy’s 43rd birthday – no one could know that it would be his last. Later that day, Mishin arrived from Moscow after an unpleasant meeting with the N1-L3 lunar programme expert commission headed by Academician Keldysh. Mishin’s dilemma was that he desperately wished to push on with the development of the N1 rocket and start manned lunar missions, but was obliged to spend much of his time on the DOS programme – for which he was the technical manager. After addressing the well-known limitations of the N1, Keldysh had told Mishin that a lunar landing in 1973 was unrealistic and that the lunar project should be reviewed in detail with the members of his commission to devise a new plan for presentation to the Kremlin. On arriving at Baykonur, Mishin did not bother to explain this bad news to his deputies. In fact, everyone was pleased to find him brisk and fresh after having recently spent three days in hospital.

On 2 June the crews discussed with Chertok, Feoktistov and other representatives from the TsKBEM the docking procedures and potential failures of the automatic systems. They also discussed issues relating to the time that the station had spent in space – the possibility of toxic agents having accumulated in its atmosphere, food spoilage, water contamination and erosion of the seal of the hatch between the two spacecraft. After both crews had spent approximately half an hour in the descent module rehearsing, Soyuz 11 was installed on its rocket ready for transport to the pad. Meanwhile, Salyut continued to orbit the Earth, awaiting its first visitors. That evening the cosmonauts exercised and played chess to relax. Kubasov, Kolodin and Volkov liked tennis; Patsayev soccer; Leonov did not mind and would play anyone at anything. After a movie they retired to bed.

Although there was a general feeling that all of the procedures had been assessed and the cosmonauts and the spacecraft were ready, there were still some concerns in relation to the rendezvous technique. After Soyuz 10 Yeliseyev was appointed as deputy to Yakov Tregub, responsible for flight control. As an expert on the control

Kolodin (foreground) was the single rookie on the ‘first crew’ for Soyuz 11. Leonov (in the middle) was the first man to make a spacewalk. Kubasov was a veteran of the Soyuz 6 mission. (Top picture from the private collection of Rex Hall. Bottom picture first published in Spaceflight magazine by the BIS).

system he had demanded of Chertok and his own former boss, Raushenbakh, who had remained in Moscow, precise figures to enable the cosmonauts to monitor the operation of the Igla in different rendezvous scenarios. This information took the form of graphs showing the permitted variance of the rate of approach as a function of the range to the station. Whenever their speed ‘touched’ a limiting line on the graph, the control system should automatically fire the thrusters either to accelerate or decelerate in order to remain within the ‘corridor’.

After lunch on 3 June Kerimov informed the State Commission of a Politburo meeting at which Brezhnyev and Kosygin had asked for another check to ensure that Soyuz 11 would be able to dock and that the crew would be able to enter the station. Afanasyev, Keldysh, Bushuyev and Smirnov had told the Politburo that Leonov’s crew would fly the mission. Kosygin asked if they were well prepared, and Smirnov

replied affirmatively. Noting that France had announced its intention to conduct an atmospheric nuclear test in the Pacific, Brezhnyev asked whether this would pose a risk to the cosmonauts, and Bushuyev said it would not.

On hearing this, Severin, known for his jokes, suggested to the Commission: “We should ask the cosmonauts to report how a nuclear explosion looks when seen from space.”

“Why?” someone asked.

“To enable them to decide for themselves whether it is sensible to return to Earth once the nuclear war begins!”

The Commission decided to install Soyuz 11 on the pad at 6.00 a. m. the following morning, 4 June, and schedule the launch for 7.55 a. m. on 6 June.

While the State Commission discussed the forthcoming launch and laughed about the French nuclear test, the cosmonauts were having a routine medical examination. The mood changed suddenly when an X-ray scan showed an unusual dark spot on Kubasov’s right lung which had not been present on a scan in February. Could it be tuberculosis? When an additional scan confirmed that he did indeed have something on his lung, the physicians announced that he would not be able to fly the mission. Kubasov was one of the first civilians to have passed the Air Force’s medical screening for cosmonaut selection; he was one of the strongest cosmonauts; he was fit and healthy – only the previous evening he had run 5 km and then played tennis. Although Kubasov insisted that he was feeling perfectly alright and was ready to fly, the physicians ruled that he was unfit to fly.

This was unprecedented. In 1969 the original Soyuz 8 crew had been replaced as a result of poor scores in the training examinations, but that was almost two months prior to the mission. In this case the cosmonauts were already at Baykonur with just three days to the launch date. Who should fly? Representatives of the Air Force, the Ministry of General Machine Building and the Ministry of Health had all signed a document which specified that in the event of a cosmonaut on a prime crew being medically disqualified prior to travelling to Baykonur he should be replaced by his backup. However, there should be no individual replacements once the crews were at the cosmodrome – the plan was to replace the entire crew with its backup, which meant that Leonov’s crew would have to be replaced by Dobrovolskiy’s crew. That was the rule… but the situation was difficult. When Dobrovolskiy’s crew was first assigned, this had been in the expectation that it would fly to DOS-2 in 1972. As a result of the inability of Soyuz 10 to dock with Salyut, and the desire to make two visits to DOS-1, Dobrovolskiy’s mission had been advanced by one year. Now they faced setting off with only a few day’s notice and being the first to attempt the new docking procedure. In contrast to Soyuz 10, which included two veterans, one of whom (Shatalov) was the only cosmonaut to have previously made a docking, only one member of Dobrovolskiy’s crew (Volkov) had flown in space.

Kamanin called a meeting of the senior Air Force representatives present at the cosmodrome – cosmonauts Shatalov, Leonov, Kolodin and Dobrovolskiy, General Kuznyetsov, who ran the TsPK, General Goreglyad, who was Kamanin’s long-time aide, and the medical staff. They analysed the new situation and, after weighing the factors, decided that the best solution was to reject the rule and instead to substitute Volkov for Kubasov in Leonov’s crew. When Kamanin suggested this to Kerimov and Mishin, they agreed. But a short time later Mishin rang Kamanin to say that he had changed his mind – he had discussed the matter with the Kremlin, which was of the opinion that they must follow the rule and assign the mission to Dobrovolskiy’s crew.

Interestingly, only a few people at the cosmodrome were aware of what was afoot. In particular, Chertok, who after Mishin was the most senior TsKBEM man present, found out only late in the afternoon when he was stopped outside the dinning room by Severin, who complained about having to replace the couches, flight suits and medical belts – which would not be easy to do now that the spacecraft was installed on the third stage of the launch vehicle and within its aerodynamic shroud. Chertok was dumbfounded. He and Severin went into the dinning room to talk to Shabarov, who was responsible for testing manned spacecraft; he had heard nothing. Severin was astonished: “Is it possible that your boss didn’t consider it necessary to consult you about such a fundamental issue? To replace a crew at just two days notice. This is something that has never been done before – not here, nor in America.[41] Will we once again perform an experiment ‘for the first time in the world’?’’ At this point, Mishin called and asked all the managers of the TsKBEM and representatives of the Institute of Biomedical Problems and the Ministry of Health to meet at 11.00 p. m. in the MIK. This was to be the civilian equivalent of Kamanin’s consultation with the Air Force representatives.

Dr. Yevgeniy Vorobyev, a physician, explained that an X-ray scan had revealed a shading on Kubasov’s right lung about the size of a chicken’s egg. He also pointed out that the Air Force was responsible for ongoing monitoring of the cosmonauts’ health, and that Kamanin and his medical staff were responsible for answering any queries about to the late discovery of this ailment. A senior member of the Ministry of Health then pointed out the failure of the TsPK to discover that cosmonaut Pavel Belyayev had developed a bleeding ulcer, with the result that he died in hospital in January 1970. At midnight, the TsKBEM managers agreed to put Soyuz 11 on the pad the next morning and to replace the crew facilities once it was in place. Severin said that although it would not be straightforward to do this work through the hatch of the orbital module, doing so should take no longer than five hours. Although the TsKBEM managers took it for granted that the crew would be swapped, the formal nomination of the crew was the responsibility of the State Commission.

At 7.00 a. m. on 4 June, shortly after Soyuz 11 had been installed on the pad, the State Commission gathered in the MIK for a meeting which would be remembered forever. General Kerimov, the chairman, reported that Kubasov was not going to fly; the basis of this decision was the medical report that declared him to be unfit. This took some people completely by surprise, because the previous day the Kremlin had confirmed the crew. Dr. Vorobyev explained the situation: “During the X-ray scan, physicians noted a shading on Kubasov’s lung. They took layered roentgenography and calculated that the infiltration is located at a depth of 9 cm. It is deemed to be serious and active.’’ He added that although an examination of Kubasov’s blood was generally satisfactory, there was an increase in eosinophils, which are the white blood cells of the immune system.

Kerimov asked Kamanin for his thoughts about the crew. Taking into account the complexity of the planned mission, Kamanin said that Volkov should fly instead of Kubasov. “Leonov has already been in space. He has even spacewalked. Volkov has flown on Soyuz and he will be able to manage the mission objectives.” It was a simple case of replacing one experienced cosmonaut with another.

However, Mishin thought differently: “We object! I consulted with our comrades. We have the document signed by the Air Force that in a case like this we have to change the entire crew. The backup crew passed their training with good scores. A new and unharmonised crew would be worse than the backup one. We categorically insist on the replacement of the entire crew.’’ Mishin was supported by Chertok and Shabarov, and even by General Ponomaryev, who was the Deputy Commander-in­Chief of the Air Force, and by General Kuznyetsov, the head of the TsPK who was aware that his elderly and unpopular boss was soon to retire. Those members of the Commission whose role was to ensure that the spacecraft was launched on time and was able to accomplish the planned mission, and so were not particularly interested in who flew, abstained from the debate.

The State Commission decided to replace the entire crew, and told Kamanin to inform the cosmonauts of this. Kamanin did not object. He knew the rules. Perhaps in different circumstances he would have challenged Mishin, as he had often before.

But he was tired of disputes with the Chief Designer and also of misunderstandings with General Kutakhov, his new boss. The mission of Soyuz 11 would conclude his decade in charge of cosmonaut training. Although Yevgeniy Bashkin, a training instructor from the TsPK, pointed out that his team had worked primarily with the prime crew at the expense of the backup crew, this was not intended as support for Kamanin’s case. Shabarov asked for permission to leave the Commission early with Severin and Feoktistov, as they had a lot of work to do on the spacecraft. However, because its business had been decided, Kerimov concluded the session. After a brief breakfast Severin and his team went to replace the apparatus in the spacecraft, and Feoktistov’s group made the relevant calculations to allow for the change in overall weight of the crew.

In the afternoon, several top-level medical experts flew in from Moscow. After a detailed analysis of the documentation of Kubasov’s ailment, and taking additional scans, they confirmed the symptoms of tuberculosis.

Soon after decree No. 105-41 was issued in February 1970 directing that work start on the DOS project, Kamanin asked Mishin to immediately assign crews for the first space station, and Mishin directed his subordinates who dealt with the selection and training of cosmonaut-engineers to do so.

One of the first to be nominated was Aleksey Yeliseyev, who had flown two Soyuz missions in 1969: ‘‘Deputy Chief Designer Yakov Tregub called and said that he would like to include Nikolay Rukavishnikov and I in the first crew. He also suggested that we familiarise ourselves with all works related to the orbital station and the preparation for its launch. Tregub led the testing of the spacecraft systems, the technical training of the cosmonauts, and managed mission control. His opinion was important, and we thought we had good chances. We were so excited to work on the first orbital station!”

At the end of April 1970 Tregub and Colonel Sergey Anyokhin, who was head of the TsKBEM’s cosmonaut group, paid Kamanin a visit and explained that the plan was to build two identical space stations, each of which would be occupied twice. Four crews had been selected. The first two would be assigned to DOS-1; the first flying a 30-day mission and the second a 45-day mission.1 The third and fourth crews would serve in a backup role for DOS-1 and then become the prime crews for DOS-2.

The nominations were:

• Crew 1: Vladimir Shatalov, Aleksey Yeliseyev and Nikolay Rukavishnikov

• Crew 2: Georgiy Shonin, Valeriy Kubasov and Pyotr Kolodin

• Crew 3: Boris Volynov, Konstantin Feoktistov and Viktor Patsayev

• Crew 4: Yevgeniy Khrunov, Vladislav Volkov and Vitaliy Sevastyanov.

The commander of the first crew, Colonel Shatalov, had been recruited by the TsPK in 1963 as a member of the second group of military cosmonauts. He had flown twice – the first time performing the first docking in space of two manned spacecraft. In 1966 Yeliseyev had become a member of the TsKBEM’s first group of cosmonaut-engineers. He was one of three Soviet cosmonauts with experience of spacewalking.[26] [27] In January 1969, after Shatalov had docked Soyuz 4 with Soyuz 5, Yeliseyev and Khrunov had made an external transfer to join him. Also, Shatalov and Yeliseyev had flown together on Soyuz 8 in October 1969. Rukavishnikov was also a member of the first group of cosmonaut-engineers, but had not been able to enter training until early 1967. His assignment on the space station crew was as the research engineer.

Colonel Shonin was to command the second mission to the station. Although he had been recruited in 1960 as a member of the first group of the cosmonauts, he did not make his first flight until October 1969, when he commanded Soyuz 6 and spent five days in space. His engineer on that mission was Kubasov, who, like Yeliseyev, was a member of the TsKBEM’s first group of cosmonaut-engineers. Lieutenant – Colonel Kolodin was recruited in 1963 as a member of the second group of military cosmonauts. He had served in a backup role for the ‘group flight’ of 1969. On the space station crew he would serve as the research engineer.

Colonel Volynov, the commander of the third crew, was a member of the first group of cosmonauts. He commanded Soyuz 5, which served as the passive target for Soyuz 4. Spacecraft designer Feoktistov had flown as the engineer of the Voskhod mission in 1964. Because Volynov had been backup commander for that mission, he knew Feoktistov well. Patsayev, a rookie TsKBEM cosmonaut-engineer, was to be the research engineer.

The fourth crew was to be commanded by Colonel Khrunov, who was a member of the first group of cosmonauts. On his first flight he had launched on Soyuz 5 and, with Yeliseyev, had spacewalked to Soyuz 4 to return to Earth. The flight engineer, Volkov, was a TsKBEM cosmonaut-engineer who had flown on Soyuz 7. Although Sevastyanov was chosen as a member of the first group of cosmonaut-engineers, he had not entered training until early 1967. At the time of his assignment as a space station research engineer, he was training for the Soyuz 9 ‘marathon’ mission to be flown in June 1970.

Although Mishin and Kamanin had previously argued that the DOS crews should be drawn exclusively from his own side, five of the nominations that the TsKBEM proposed were Air Force and seven were civilians. Kamanin acknowledged that the commanders were military cosmonauts, but wanted to have two military officers on each crew – only the second nominated crew had two military officers; in the others there were two civilians. He also criticised having two veterans on each crew. He particularly objected to having two of the most experienced cosmonauts – Shatalov and Yeliseyev – on the same crew. There were Air Force cosmonauts who had been waiting many years to make their first space flight.

Kamanin also criticised the nomination of Feoktistov. Every time that he had seen Feoktistov’s name on a list of candidates for an assignment, he had opposed it. In 1964 he had argued against Korolev’s desire to fly Feoktistov on the first Voskhod mission. After the death of Komarov on Soyuz 1 in 1967, Mishin had proposed that since the primary task of the manned mission planned for October 1968 would be to test the modified Soyuz, the best man to fly it would be Feoktistov, but Kamanin had insisted that the renowned test pilot Colonel Beregovoy be assigned. However, Beregovoy failed do dock his Soyuz 3 with the unmanned Soyuz 2 – despite the fact that unmanned Soyuz spacecraft had twice previously achieved automated dockings. Kamanin’s hostility to Feoktistov was not limited to crew assignments. In 1969 the Americans had invited the Soviet Union to send two cosmonauts on a goodwill trip to the United States. The TsPK candidate was Beregovoy. When Mishin nominated Feoktistov, Kamanin argued that another military officer, Pavel Belyayev, who had commanded Voskhod 2, should be sent instead. On that occasion, Mishin won. As regards the DOS nomination, the basis of Kamanin’s criticism was that Feoktistov’s state of health was too poor, he wore glasses and was divorcing for the second time. But the real reason for Kamanin’s persistent antipathy might have been that, unlike the other cosmonauts, Feoktistov never joined the Communist Party. In fact, given that Feoktistov had gone behind Mishin’s back to get the DOS programme started, it was perhaps surprising that the TsKBEM’s Chief Designer had allowed his name to go forward at all!

Volynov’s nomination also caused Kamanin a difficulty. Volynov had been one of the strongest candidates in the first group of cosmonauts, but his mother was of Jewish heritage and this had attracted the criticism of the Kremlin’s anti-Semites. Ivan Serbin, who was the Chief of the Industries Department, had openly warned Kamanin after the successful Soyuz 4/5 mission that not only must Volynov not be assigned another space flight, he should not even be allowed to travel to abroad. In 1964 Volynov had been on the verge of commanding the historic Voskhod mission, but at the last moment Kamanin, yielding to Korolev’s argument to fly Feoktistov, who was on the backup crew, and to criticism of Volynov’s appointment by Serbin and others in the Kremlin, had allowed the backup crew to fly. In the spring of 1966 Volynov had gone to Baykonur to command the planned long-duration Voskhod 3 mission, but this was cancelled – although not owing to criticism of Volynov. Now,

with Grechko’s man Kutakhov running the Air Force, Kamanin knew that his own position was too weak to resist the criticism which Volynov’s nomination to a DOS crew would draw. In February 1970 Kamanin had given Volynov the ‘low profile’ job of commanding the new recruits; now he told him not to expect a nomination to a space flight for at least several years.

Finally, Kamanin was stunned at the nomination of Khrunov. In 1969, while he was a backup commander for the Soyuz ‘group flight’, Khrunov had been involved in a car accident two months prior to launch and had left the scene without assisting an injured person. As punishment for this irresponsible behaviour, Kamanin had temporarily excluded Khrunov from training for a future space mission.

Let us return to Mishin and the decision to swap the entire crew. When speaking of this issue at the State Commission he repeatedly used “we” rather than “I’’. Who else was involved in taking this decision? It is clear from Chertok’s memoirs that Mishin did not consult either Chertok or Shabarov, his most senior deputies present, as they heard the news from Severin, who was from a different design bureau! The discussion between Severin, Chertok and Shabarov occurred late in the afternoon of 3 June, several hours after the medical examination. The events during those hours are still unclear, but based on the memories of some of the people present, as well as upon later events, it is possible to construct a reasonable scenario of activities by the Air Force people under Kamanin and by the TsKBEM staff headed by Mishin, and this indicates that the decision was made very quickly. If Mishin did not consult his two principal available deputies, what about Moscow?

At 9.00 a. m. on 4 June, immediately following the State Commission’s meeting, Bushuyev telephoned Chertok from Moscow. As we have seen, Bushuyev had gone to the Politburo with Afanasyev, Keldysh and Smirnov the previous day to report to Brezhnyev on the preparations for Soyuz 11. Bushuyev gave Chertok a summary of the meeting, and told him that Afanasyev would arrive at Baykonur that afternoon for another test of the modified docking system. But Bushuyev, who was Mishin’s second deputy and therefore the third man in the TsKBEM structure, had no idea of the crew change. On hearing of it from Chertok he became agitated: “How dare you decide to do it without consulting us in Moscow! We have reported to the Politburo that Leonov’s crew will fly. We confirmed how well they were prepared. And you – because of Kubasov – have replaced them all! Look at the situation in which you have placed Afanasyev, Smirnov and Ustinov! Now they must urgently report again. Afanasyev will be with you in three hours and he won’t thank you for it either.’’ It is therefore clear that Mishin did not consult Bushuyev, his most senior deputy having a responsibility for manned spacecraft.

In fact, there was only one man in Moscow whom Mishin was obliged to consult: his old patron, Minister Afanasyev, who in turn would have sought the blessing of Ustinov. Although this must have occurred, Bushuyev was clearly unaware of it. It is difficult to prove the case, however, as the leaders of the Soviet space programme made many decisions orally. If there are any documents about this dramatic change, they remain secret in the Kremlin’s archive.

Mishin based his objection to Kamanin’s suggestion on two elements:

• the document signed by the Air Force stating that once the crews were at the cosmodrome they would not be replaced on an individual basis; and

• his suspicion that if Volkov were to be substituted for Kubasov at this late stage then the crew would not be as harmonious as it would have been with Kubasov, making it inferior to a crew comprising Dobrovolskiy, Volkov and Patsayev, who, even though they were less experienced, had been in training as a crew for some time.

On the other side, Kamanin thought that a crew consisting of Leonov, Volkov and Kolodin, with two veteran cosmonauts, would be more capable of completing such a complex mission successfully.

But perhaps Mishin and Kamanin were each driven by a simpler motivation. After much debate, it had been agreed that the first and third crews would have one TsPK cosmonaut (in command) and two TsKBEM cosmonaut-engineers; and the second and fourth crews would have two military cosmonauts and one civilian. But the first crew had not been able to dock with the station, and Mishin and Kamanin may each have sought to interpret this agreement in his own favour: Mishin wishing to fly his two engineers and Kamanin wishing to have two military cosmonauts. Applying the rule of exchanging the entire crew would favour Mishin. Discarding the rule and replacing Kubasov by Volkov would favour Kamanin. Volkov would fly regardless of how the dispute was resolved. The basic issue was which community would have two of its cosmonauts on the crew – the TsPK or the TsKBEM.

At noon on 3 June, immediately after the medical report which grounded Kubasov, Kamanin and his Air Force people decided to reject the rule and instead substitute Volkov for Kubasov in Leonov’s crew. Initially, Mishin accepted the plan, but soon telephoned Kamanin and told him that after a conversation with Moscow (actually Afanasyev and probably Ustinov) they must exchange the crew. Officially, the State Commission was responsible for considering the views of Kamanin and Mishin and formally nominating the crew. But with the exception of Mishin, and at a later stage Kerimov, no members of the Commission had been involved in this decision; Kamanin was excluded of course. Mishin did not mention an official document – he simply said to Kamanin that Moscow supported the crew exchange. In fact, to achieve his goal Mishin had used the document between the Air Force and the TsKBEM which specified that once the crews were at the cosmodrome they would not be replaced on an individual basis. When Soyuz 10 failed to dock, it appeared that Mishin had missed the chance to have two civilian cosmonauts on the first crew to board Salyut; but now, thanks to Kubasov’s ailment, if he could get the crew exchanged, he had a second opportunity to send two of his cosmonauts.

However, someone was missing in this chain of events: Volkov – the man who may well have played the most crucial role. The Air Force people certainly did not consult the civilian, and Mishin initially accepted Kamanin’s plan without seeking the opinion of Volkov. But as Mishin thought about it more deeply, it is reasonable that he would have talked the matter over with Volkov, and possibly also Patsayev, prior to making his call to Moscow.

After Mishin called Kamanin to say that Moscow had consented to the crew being swapped, Kamanin informed the Air Force staff. Leonov exploded. He could not accept this. As a member of the original cosmonaut group, and the first man ever to spacewalk, he urged the Air Force to demand that he fly with Kolodin and Volkov. He had trained for the mission for almost a year. He knew Salyut thoroughly. As a passionate artist, he had even arranged for the station’s cargo to include his painting apparatus. While in space he wanted to paint the Earth, the stars, the Moon, distant nebulas, and his colleagues at work in the station. It was his mission. Naturally, he had the full support of Kolodin, who was eager to make his first flight.

The famous journalist Yaroslav Golovanov, who knew many of the cosmonauts well, recalled the atmosphere at Baykonur as follows: “It is hard to describe what was happening in the Cosmonaut Hotel. Leonov was so furious that he was simply growling. If he could, he would have strangled Kubasov. Poor Valeriy could not understand what was going on. He was feeling perfectly well and, after all, it wasn’t his fault. In the evening Kolodin visited me, completely crushed. With a glass in his hand he said: ‘Yaroslav, you know, I will never fly in space.’ And he was right. …

Leonov urged the replacement of Kubasov with Volkov. It looks as if he succeeded in convincing the generals, but then Volkov became obstinate, saying: ‘If a change is necessary, then change the entire crew.’ ”

This definitely shows that Volkov was behind the decision; Mishin was merely its executor.

However, in one of his interviews Kubasov said something else: ‘‘They intended to move Volkov from the backup crew to take my place, but Leonov categorically opposed this idea.’’

Are we to believe Leonov did not wish Volkov to be on his crew? It was true that of the cosmonaut-engineers Volkov was the most critical of his military colleagues owing to their lesser technical qualifications. In training at the TsPK for his first flight, he sometimes behaved as if he were the leader of the crew with two military cosmonauts. In fact, Kamanin once told Filipchenko, the real Soyuz 7 commander, to restrain Volkov in the Soyuz simulator. Of course, Leonov would have known of this. In normal circumstances, Leonov would not have been keen to have Volkov on his crew. But Leonov knew that the only way that he would fly on Soyuz 11 was if he accepted Volkov as his flight engineer. Volkov, however, had a choice. He had a guaranteed ticket to fly. If he flew under Leonov’s command he would be the only civilian on board. If the backup crew flew, then not only would he fly with the men with whom he had trained, but because Dobrovolskiy and Patsayev were rookies he would enjoy the status of a veteran. So for Volkov the choice was simple. And there is another unusual aspect to Kubasov’s claim. He was close to Volkov: both were from Moscow; they were the same age; they graduated from the Moscow Aviation Institute; they worked together for years at OKB-1; they successfully passed all the cosmonaut examinations and medical tests and were chosen for the TsKBEM’s first group of cosmonaut-engineers. As much as he may have sought to protect Volkov, by making his claim Kubasov actually raised an old and never documented story of a complex relationship between Leonov and Volkov: allegedly, when the crews for the DOS missions were first nominated Leonov belittled Volkov, pointing out that although a veteran he was only on the third crew, and hence had no chance of flying to the first space station.

On 4 June the State Commission confirmed what Volkov and Mishin desired: the replacement of the entire crew. When they heard of this from Kamanin, Leonov and Kolodin continued to complain. Having two cosmonauts, both military officers, one a space veteran and the other a rookie, dispute the decision of a State Commission was a remarkable moment for the centralised and totalitarian Soviet system – both unprecedented and incomprehensible. Kamanin, who was always on the side of his cosmonauts, acceded to the pressure imposed by Mishin, who was able to rely upon the rule signed by the Air Force stating that once the crews were at Baykonur there would be no individual cosmonaut substitutions. Having lost the support of the Air Force and his closest colleagues at the TsPK, Kamanin did not wish to pursue the matter further. But Leonov and Kamanin did. Lacking the support of their generals, they went directly to the only man who could have the decision changed: Mishin. In the 2004 book Two Sides of the Moon, which Leonov co-authored, he summarised the conversation with Mishin ahead of the final

meeting of the State Commission on the evening of 4 June. Leonov says that Mishin warned him: “Don’t forget that you shared a room with Kubasov. Perhaps you drank from the same glass. We can’t take the risk of you becoming ill while in space.’’ In hindsight, Leonov acknowledged Mishin was correct. But at the time he could not accept the decision. He and Mishin exchanged some rather unpleasant words. Just before the State Commission convened, Mishin advised Chertok of his difficult conversation with Leonov and Kolodin – during which Kolodin said that he had known all along that he would not fly: “To them, I am the ‘white crow’ – they’re all pilots and I’m a missile man.’’

That was true: among the 15 members of the 1963 group of Air Force cosmonauts, Kolodin was one of four who were not pilots. He had served at both the Baykonur and Plesetsk cosmodromes in the Strategic Rocket Forces. As a ‘missile man’ at the TsPK, he did not think he had much chance of ever being assigned to a prime crew in competition with the Air Force officers, some of whom had test pilot experience. Fellow ‘missile man’ Eduard Buynovskiy has said that when the cosmonauts of the second group arrived in Zvyozdniy they were immediately separated into pilots and non-pilots. In addition, Kolodin was notable for the curiosity of having lost half of his left thumb in an accident! According to Leonov, Kolodin had a particularly hard time. In 1964-65 Kolodin was Leonov’s second backup in preparations for the first spacewalk. He was appointed as a general backup for the ‘group flight’ of October 1969 along with Shatalov and Yeliseyev, but when the two-man crew of Soyuz 8 was replaced Kolodin was not needed. Now, when he was on the threshold of space, it was decided that he should be stood down! Kolodin reportedly tried to convince Mishin to substitute him for Patsayev on Dobrovolskiy’s crew. Of course, Mishin refused, and Kolodin, almost with tears in his eyes, warned ominously, ‘‘History will not forgive you for what you have done.’’

It is interesting that in his published diary Kamanin did not write in detail of his conversations with Leonov and Kolodin. He said simply that Leonov’s entire crew reacted incorrectly and in an inappropriate manner. According to Kamanin, their behaviour was totally unacceptable and did them no honour. However, they were not the alone in this. As Kamanin put it: ‘‘They are guilty for that, as are many Big Chiefs who added fuel to the flame.’’

On 6 May 1970 revised crews were nominated. They were:

• Crew 1: Georgiy Shonin, Aleksey Yeliseyev and Nikolay Rukavishnikov

• Crew 2: Aleksey Leonov, Valeriy Kubasov and Pyotr Kolodin

• Crew 3: Vladimir Shatalov, Vladislav Volkov and Viktor Patsayev

• Crew 4: Georgiy Dobrovolskiy, Vitaliy Sevastyanov and Anatoliy Voronov

By this point, relations between Mishin and Kamanin were improving. Mishin had accepted most of Kamanin’s criticisms. Splitting Shatalov from Yeliseyev led to Shatalov having an unpleasant conversation with Kamanin at being demoted from commanding the first crew to visit the space station. Mishin and Kamanin agreed a more equitable share of the nominations: with the first and third crews having one TsPK cosmonaut (who was commander) and two TsKBEM cosmonaut-engineers; and with the second and fourth crews having two military cosmonauts and one civilian. In return, Kamanin allowed his cosmonauts to visit Kaliningrad to perform part of their training with their civilian counterparts – thereby relieving the demand on the TsPK’s simulators. Since the L1 and L3 lunar programmes were both stalled, Kamanin reassigned all the military cosmonauts nominally in training for such missions to other projects, including DOS.

In the reshuffle Shatalov was moved from the first crew to replace Volynov on the third, with Shonin taking Shatalov’s place. Kamanin nominated Colonel Leonov, another veteran from the first group of cosmonauts who had trained to command the first L1 circumlunar mission, to fill Shonin’s place. Khrunov was replaced as commander of the fourth crew by Lieutenant-Colonel Dobrovolskiy who, although he had been recruited in 1963 as a member of the second Air Force group, had not yet flown in space. Mishin replaced Feoktistov by advancing Volkov from the fourth crew, then reassigned Sevastyanov’s role from research engineer to flight engineer. Kamanin completed this crew with Lieutenant-Colonel Voronov, who was another member of the Air Force’s second group who had yet to fly. All the research engineers were rookies, and the first three crews each had two experienced cosmonauts – one from each community. The inexperience of Dobrovolskiy’s crew was not considered to be a problem, because they would have the longest time to

Kubasov (left), Volkov and Yeliseyev, flight engineers assigned to the first DOS station, in conversation with an Air Force representative (back to camera).

A rare photo showing some of the original DOS crewmembers at an early stage of training listening to a presentation at the TsKBEM: Shonin (left), Shatalov, Kubasov, an unidentified person and Volkov.

train and would be able to benefit from the lessons learned by their predecessors in operating a space station. On 13 May 1970 Mishin and Kamanin signed a decree which confirmed the crew assignments.

The names of all the cosmonauts have been mentioned intentionally, even those who were not actually able to train for a mission to the DOS-1 station, as this shows how the destinies of these men were influenced by incidents such as Khrunov’s car crash, Volynov’s Jewish blood, Kamanin’s dislike for Feoktistov, and the need to agree a fair balance of assignments between the two communities of cosmonauts.

In late July the Military-Industrial Commission (VPK) met specifically to discuss the progress with the DOS programme. Okhapkin, Mishin’s First Deputy, gave the TsKBEM report. In accordance with the original plan, two identical stations were to be built. DOS-1 was to be launched in early 1971 and be visited by two crews who would undertake a variety of scientific experiments and make terrestrial, solar and astronomical observations. Two further crews would visit DOS-2 in 1972. However, Okhapkin reported that as a result of a number of problems the project was about 2 months late. After Soyuz 8 experienced difficulties with its fgla rendezvous system on the ‘group flight’ in 1969, the design had been revised and the system transferred from the descent module to the orbital module in order to improve its ‘field of view’. In addition, since the flight to the station would take only one day and the capsule would return to Earth within hours of departing from the station, the designers had simplified its life support system; but there were delays in testing the revisions. The major change to the Soyuz was the inclusion of a docking system incorporating a 0.8-metre-diameter hatch to enable the cosmonauts to access the station. There had been delays in constructing this new system. Nevertheless, as soon as the schedule allowed, DOS-1 would be launched by one of Chelomey’s Proton rockets. After 8 to 10 days, the Soyuz 10 mission would be launched using the first 7K-T crew ferry. If everything went to plan, Shonin, Yeliseyev and Rukavishnikov would spend 30 days

on the station. Twenty-five days after Soyuz 10’s return, Soyuz 11 would be launched with Leonov, Kubasov and Kolodin, who would spend up to 45 days in space, with the actual duration being determined by how well the flight progressed. ft was therefore hoped that the DOS-1 station would be able to be occupied for 75 days of its expected service life of 80-90 days. However, it was accepted that this would be a pioneering venture. The longest time that American astronauts had spent in space was 14 days, on a Gemini flight in December 1965. Several weeks prior to the VPK meeting, the 18-day flight of Soyuz 9 by cosmonauts Andriyan Nikolayev and Vitaliy Sevastyanov had broken this endurance record. As the days passed, the cosmonauts had become so tired that mission control had used a siren to wake them up. On their return to Earth their heart rates were twice the norm, and for three days neither man had been able to walk. ft took them a month to recover fully. fn fact, Nikolayev had to retire several months later owing to ongoing heart issues. fn view of the experiences of this crew, Kamanin said that missions of 30 or 45 days were unrealistic until more information was gained on how the human body was affected by prolonged exposure to weightlessness, and he argued that the early DOS flights should not exceed 20 days.

The VPK meeting ended without specifying the length of the missions for the DOS-1 station. Leonid Smirnov, the chairman of the commission, ordered that all testing must be done by the end of the year, and that the station must be launched in time to be celebrated by the 24th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party in March 1971.

fn June 1970 the engineers of the first and third crews (Yeliseyev, Rukavishnikov, Volkov and Patsayev) started to train at the TsPK, and began to pay regular visits to the Khrunichev factory in Fili to monitor the building the first station.

Yeliseyev recalls: “The construction of the station was rapid. ft took only a few days to build a wooden mockup – all its sections and elements were in accordance with the design, but instead of real devices and apparatus it had wooden models. With Rukavishnikov, f went to see the mockup of the first station. Compared to the Soyuz, it looked like a giant – it was more than 10 metres from one end to the other. There was room for several people to work, without hindrances. … Engineers were working continuously, checking every detail of the documentation. Every revision was tested on the mockup, with a detailed inspection. ff the change was acceptable, then it was made to the station. We were involved in testing the positioning of the controls, instrument panels and the apparatus for visual monitoring. We were also consulted on how the crew should work and rest. . . . This work was very interesting. However, f must admit that the most impressive thing was to watch the real station be born. … f had a feeling of being present at the nativity of a secret miracle that the public knew nothing about. However, the whole world would hear about it very soon.’’

The commanders of the first and the third crews (Shonin and Shatalov) joined in the training on 17 August. The second crew (Leonov, Kubasov and Kolodin) began to train on 18 September. The members of the fourth crew were each busy with his individual tasks. Dobrovolskiy’s assignment was to the Contact project, testing the rendezvous and docking techniques for the N1-L3 lunar programme, and he did not

Cosmonauts Sevastyanov (left) and Nikolayev shown on TV from Soyuz 9 during a communication session of their record-breaking mission in 1970.

Photos of cosmonauts training in the DOS-1 simulator are extremely rare. Here, an unidentified cosmonaut is in the commander’s seat, facing the main control panel.

begin DOS training until January 1971, after the cancellation of the N1-L3. After his Soyuz 9 mission Sevastyanov spent several months recuperating, and so did not start DOS training until October 1970. However, as was usual for cosmonauts who had just made their first flight, he was frequently sent on goodwill visits, both to the member republics of the USSR and to foreign countries. The third crewmember, Voronov, was also initially involved in another project. As a result, the fourth crew did not begin serious training for DOS until January 1971, and expected to have at least 18 months before making their flight.

The final meeting of the State Commission started at 6.00 p. m. on 4 June. In the past these sessions had been fairly ceremonial in nature because all the details had already been resolved and the purpose was to confirm readiness for the launch. The most interesting part of the session was always the presentation of the cosmonauts. However, this occasion set a precedent. Dobrovolskiy, Volkov, Patsayev, Leonov, Kubasov and Kolodin were seated in a line behind a long table. The men who had been assigned to fly looked serious, almost anxious. According to Leonov they even appeared to have been frightened by the sudden change in their schedule. Established in mid-February, Dobrovolskiy’s crew knew that they should have had more time to train – another month at least, to prepare themselves for the next visit to Salyut. Leonov’s crew held their heads low, clenched their fingers, and appeared nervous. Behind them sat the Soyuz 10 crew. The tension in the air was oppressive.

Kamanin introduced the prime crew. As he announced the names, the cosmonauts stood up. Dobrovolskiy briefly said that his crew was ready to conduct the assigned tasks.

At the session, Leonov was very disappointed: “At the previous session I thanked the Commission for their trust. Now I can only express my regret about what has happened.’’

How about Kubasov? He felt especially guilty because his ailment meant neither of his crewmembers would be allowed to fly.

After just 20 minutes the meeting was concluded.

The famous journalist Mihail Rebrov was present: “I recall the intense silence in the room of the State Commission during the announcement of the decision. Then an explosion of protest! Leonov and Kolodin defended their right to fly the mission, saying that they knew the station better, that they had trained for longer, and that the promotion of Volkov from the backup crew would not have complicated their task. However, the State Commission had made its decision: the backup crew would fly. On the faces of the two crews you could feel the tension, envy… Everything had happened unexpectedly and painfully. Kolodin suffered more than the others. The anger was apparent on his face.’’

Reportedly, Kubasov approached Chertok and apologised. “I believed I had only caught a cold – that it would pass in a week and nothing would be visible on the X – ray scan.’’ No one could console him. The great irony is that the diagnosis of the physicians proved to be spurious. A more detailed medical examination in Moscow showed him to be healthy! It was decided that he must have an allergy to the spray applied to the trees at Baykonur. Many years later, however, Kubasov revealed that the pollen from the trees flowering in the late-season spring had initiated his allergy. What was certain was that the dark spot on his lung wasn’t the onset of tuberculosis.

Another irony is that the comprehensive medical screening failed to establish that Patsayev had a chronic kidney inflammation.

Thus, the incorrect diagnosis of tuberculosis symptoms on Kubasov’s lung led to a healthy cosmonaut being grounded and one with a chronic medical problem being launched into space!

At 7.00 p. m., shortly after the conclusion of the State Commission, Dobrovolskiy, Volkov and Patsayev gave their press conference. Sitting between Kamanin and the Soyuz 10 crew, they were now relaxed and replied to the questions enthusiastically. The journalists knew Volkov as a veteran, but Dobrovolskiy and Patsayev were new. There were so many journalists, with so many questions, that as the room became uncomfortably hot Volkov suggested that they go outside, which they did, and the session was concluded with the crew sitting on a bench with their jackets off and their sleeves rolled up.

The Soviet space journalists knew that they were expected to ask only about the cosmonauts’ lives, their backgrounds, their families, and stories about their training;

“You could feel the tension between the crews,” observed a reporter at the dramatic meeting of the State Commission when the ‘second crew’ was named to fly instead of the ‘first crew’. Leonov, Kubasov and Kolodin sat dejectedly with Dobrovolskiy, Volkov and Patsayev.

The mood was more relaxed at the press conference following the State Commission meeting: Yeliseyev (left), Volkov, Dobrovolskiy, Patsayev, Kamanin and Shatalov.

“Soyuz 11 was a difficult assignment”. Volkov (left), Dobrovolskiy and Patsayev after the press conference. (From the private collection of Rex Hall)

not about the upcoming mission, the major tasks and the planned experiments. Once the mission was underway TASS would publish all that was necessary. The excited cosmonauts spoke willingly, often simultaneously. They jumped from topic to topic. They began by speaking about themselves, in particular about their early years, switched to their training, and then returned to their childhood years. At one point, Patsayev spoke of Korolev. Despite tradition, Dobrovolskiy felt obliged to offer an insight into their mission. As he put it: “Soyuz 10 inaugurated work with the orbital station. Our mission is to complete the next stage of the work begun by Soyuz 10.” The official story was that the Soyuz 10 crew had not been meant to enter Salyut. Volkov said the Soyuz 10 mission was “rather successful”, and that “Soyuz 11 has a difficult assignment”. Of course, the journalists knew that with these words Volkov was saying that complex manoeuvres and a docking operation were to be attempted, and that the crew would board the station. After half an hour, the cosmonauts drew the unusual conference to an end because they had to prepare flight documentation.

But before they departed Volkov and Patsayev shared a cigarette offered by one of the journalists.

Interestingly, after the press conference Patsayev went to Leonov’s room in the Cosmonaut Hotel to apologise. He especially respected Leonov, and was not happy at being nominated for his first mission into space in such circumstances.

On 5 June the final crew for Soyuz 11 were introduced to the launch team at the traditional preflight meeting. Almost 3,000 people gathered at the base of the rocket. There were generals, officers, soldiers, technicians, engineers, politicians, designers, and even some people from the other launch pads. For the first time there were a lot of women present – Korolev’s colleagues say that he had not wanted woman on the pad, believing that they would be unlucky for the forthcoming mission. But on this occasion it appeared that everyone at Baykonur wanted to see the cosmonauts who were to lift off the next day for one of the most important missions in the history of cosmonautics. They formed a ring in front of the rocket, with the cosmonauts in the centre, holding flowers.

Visibly excited, Dobrovolskiy said: “While on my way here, I prepared a speech. Now, seeing your smiles, I’ll simply say, dear comrades and friends, thank you very much for your effort. We will do everything that is necessary to complete our task.’’ It was traditional for the prime and backup crews to take a brief walk in homage to their predecessors, but Leonov did not wish to participate, and therefore his crew remained in place. In fact, Leonov and Kubasov had not even wished to attend the ceremony. When Kamanin had told them that they must do so, Kubasov replied: “If I am healthy then I must fly. If I am sick, I should not be there.’’

When the ceremony was over, the journalists went to see the cosmonauts’ room in the Cosmonaut Hotel. It was not very large, but contained three beds, chairs and a table in the middle draped with a white tablecloth. There were also three displays of flowers which the cosmonauts had picked nearby to freshen up the room. There was a fridge with mineral water, but despite the weather the physicians had ordered the cosmonauts not to add ice to the water. In the meantime, the prime crew had a final session with Mishin and his engineers. At this meeting an unusual photograph was taken showing the three men in an embrace with Mishin and ex-cosmonaut General Nikolayev, who was now one of the training leaders at the TsPK.

Mission commander Lieutenant-Colonel Georgiy Dobrovolskiy, flight engineer Vladislav Volkov and research engineer Viktor Patsayev found themselves on the threshold of space earlier than they or anyone else had expected.

Specific references

1. Kamanin, N. P., Hidden Space, Book 4. Novosti kosmonavtiki, 2001, pp. 313— 316 (in Russian).

2. Chertok, B. Y., Rockets and People – The Moon Race, Book 4. Mashinostrenie, Moscow, 2002, pp. 305—315 (in Russian).

3. Scott, David and Leonov, Alexei. Two Sides of the Moon – Our Story of the Cold War Space Race. Simon & Schuster, 2004, pp. 259—262.

4. Novosti kosmonavtiki, No. 3, 2005 (Interview with Valeriy Kubasov).

When the DOS programme started in early 1970, it was only one of several manned space projects. In addition to the 12 cosmonauts assigned to the DOS crews there was a group of ten cosmonauts in training at the TsPK for projects involving other versions of the Soyuz. Pavel Popovich led the 20 military cosmonauts in the Almaz group. Valeriy Bykovskiy led the now much reduced lunar group. There was also a team in training for the Spirala ‘rocket plane’ project. Because the facilities were in constant use, some of the simulators were in need of significant maintenance. The mockup of the DOS-1 station was not able to be installed at the TSPK until October 1970, barely four months before (on the target schedule) the first crew were due to be launched.

Having worked 24 hours a day, the Khrunichev factory managed to deliver three stations to the TsKBEM in December 1970 for testing.

The Ministry of General Machine Building formed the DOS-1 State Commission, drawing its members from the leading people responsible for the design and testing of the spacecraft, training the cosmonauts, launch preparations, mission control and recovery activities. By tradition, at the final meeting of a State Commission prior to a launch, representatives from the TsKBEM, the Baykonur cosmodrome and all the other institutions which participated in the preparation of the mission would assess their readiness. After the decision of the date and time of launch, Kamanin would present the prime and backup crews. Since 1966 the State Commissions for Soyuz flights had been chaired by Major-General Kerim Kerimov, one of the Ministry of General Machine Building’s directorate chiefs. He had previously been responsible for developing and operating the facilities of the Strategic Rocket Forces. At the inaugural meeting of the new State Commission in late December 1970, the Chief Designers reported on the status of the programme, and the progress in constructing the two stations and the 7K-T ferries for the Soyuz 10 and Soyuz 11 missions. As a result of problems testing its subsystems, it would not be possible to launch DOS-1 in February as hoped, and its launch was rescheduled for 15 March 1971. There was an argument about the duration of the first missions. Mishin and the medical experts of the Institute for Biomedical Problems (IBMP) in Tushino, which was the most prestigious of the civilian space medicine institutions, wanted the first crew to make a 30-day flight, but Kamanin and the physicians of the Central Air Force Scientific Research Hospital (TsVNIAG) argued for a maximum target of 25 days; the issue was left unresolved.

Shortly after the meeting, General Kutakhov, the Commander in Chief of the Air Force, visited the TsKBEM to inspect progress with the first station. Mishin tried to convince him to overrule Kamanin and support a 30-day flight for the first mission, but Kutakhov diplomatically replied that the matter should be decided by aerospace physicians and those who were responsible for training the cosmonauts. Although Mishin inferred from this that Kutakhov supported Kamanin, this was not the case. Aware that his days were numbered, Kamanin wrote to Kutakhov proposing to retire in favour of his aide, Major-General Leonid Goreglyad. But Kutakhov had his own candidate, a man who had worked under his command many years ago – cosmonaut Vladimir Shatalov. Kamanin thought that the more experienced Goreglyad would be a better choice, at least until Shatalov had matured as a manager.

In general the crew training was efficient, and the cosmonauts divided their time between the facilities in Zvyozdniy and Kaliningrad as necessary. One of the most important military experiments, which was to be done by both of the DOS-1 crews, was to monitor the launch of intercontinental ballistic missiles. In the early days of February 1971, Shonin’s and Leonov’s crews went to Baykonur for special training. Flying in a Tu-104 aircraft, they observed night launches of ballistic missiles using the Svinetz (‘Lead’) apparatus which was to be installed on the station. However, on 5 February, soon after their return, Shonin missed a session of important quality control and testing (KIS) training in Kaliningrad, apparently because he was drunk. A furious Mishin called Kamanin and loudly announced his firm decision: ‘‘He’ll never fly again in my spaceships!’’ Kamanin called Shonin, and promptly realised how stupid Shonin had been. Kamanin had received reports of Shonin’s drinking habits in March 1970 but, having been impressed by Shonin on the Soyuz 6 mission,

had taken no action. Now Kamanin realised that for months the TsPK managers had been covering for a drunken cosmonaut. This left Kamanin with no option. Shonin pleaded his case: “Take my Hero’s star, strip me of my colonel’s rank, but please don’t take my spaceflight from me!’’ Shonin had received the Gold Star of Hero of the Soviet Union for his space flight, and it was the highest honour the nation could award a military officer. Leonov, who served as one of the deputies to Kuznyetsov, the head of the TsPK, approached Kamanin in an attempt to defend Shonin, but it was too late.[28]

Kamanin now suggested the strongest military cosmonaut, Shatalov, to command the first crew. Although this reinstated the crew nominated by the TsKBEM in May 1970, Mishin was against the idea. He sought to exploit Shonin’s dismissal to call for assigning an all-civilian crew to the first DOS-1 mission: Yeliseyev would be in command, with Kubasov as flight engineer and Rukavishnikov as research engineer. Of course, Kamanin rejected this. After much argument, Mishin was obliged to accept Shatalov as the commander of the first crew. Dobrovolskiy took Shatalov’s place on the third crew, and Lieutenant-Colonel Aleksey Gubaryev, a rookie from the second group of military cosmonauts, was given command of the fourth crew. In this reshuffle, only Leonov’s crew remained untouched.

Shatalov (foreground) and Volkov training with photo-equipment.

After Shonin’s dismissal, Shatalov (second from the left) joined the ‘first crew’ with 2 months remaining to the launch of the DOS-1 station. Here he, Yeliseyev (left) and Rukavishnikov listen to Deputy Chief Designer Yakov Tregub, the head of manned flight control. (From the book Life – A Drop in the Sea, courtesy astronaut. ru)

On 12 February 1971, with the launch of the first space station imminent, the crews were changed for the third time:

• Crew 1: Vladimir Shatalov, Aleksey Yeliseyev and Nikolay Rukavishnikov

• Crew 2: Aleksey Leonov, Valeriy Kubasov and Pyotr Kolodin

• Crew 3: Georgiy Dobrovolskiy, Vladislav Volkov and Viktor Patsayev

• Crew 4: Aleksey Gubaryev, Vitaliy Sevastyanov and Anatoliy Voronov

However, as events transpired, this plan did not last.

Specific references

1. Kamanin, N. P., Hidden Space, Book 4. Novosti kosmonavtiki, 2001, pp. 153— 160 and 260—262 (in Russian).

2. Yeliseyev, A. S., Life – A Drop in the Sea. ID Aviatsiya and kosmonavtika, Moscow, 1998, pp. 70—72 (in Russian).

DOS cosmonauts. Sitting: Leonov (left), Yeliseyev, Shatalov, Rukavishnikov and Kubasov. Standing: Kolodin (left), Dobrovolskiy, Volkov and Patsayev. (From the private collection of Rex Hall)

BETWEEN THE SEA AND SKY

“About space?” began cosmonaut Dobrovolskiy when asked the inevitable question by the famous space journalist Alexandar Romanov, “I must admit, I never dreamt about it.” The interview occurred in July 1969 during the tour by Frank Borman, the first American astronaut to visit the Soviet Union. All the TsPK’s cosmonauts – veterans and rookies – gathered in Zvyozdniy to meet the man who commanded the Apollo 8 mission which orbited the Moon in December 1968. Dobrovolskiy had been seated on one of the rear benches, and Romanov took the opportunity to talk to him in advance of Borman’s arrival. “I’m from Odessa,” Dobrovolskiy continued, “where people dream only of the sea and travelling across the ocean. The majority of my friends joined the navy.’’

“But you became a cosmonaut?’’ Romanov prompted.

Dobrovolskiy smiled and looked at the sky: “First, there was aviation. I devoted ten years of my life to aviation; my happiest years. I cannot imagine myself without flying. It is an awesome feeling to sit in the cockpit of a plane which is totally in your control. And in front of you – blue heavens! I am still in love with the sky. I’m not saying I ‘love’ it, rather I’m ‘in love’ with the sky. But, now I don’t fly so much, and without flying, I’m like. . .’’

‘‘But in space nothing is really blue,’’ Romanov interjected, ‘‘it’s black.’’

‘‘In space something else attracts you. I wish so much to look at the Earth from the altitude of space! Gagarin was the first to see her blue aureole. Now we call her the Blue Planet. Listen to how that sounds: the Blue Planet! I don’t think the beauty of space could ever extinguish our love for Earth. Do you remember the song with the lyric: ‘Anywhere carried away by our rockets, we always return to you, the blue Earth’?’’

Although it was brief, this interview painted an accurate picture of Dobrovolskiy. His colleagues, to whom he was Zhora, said he was born to fly. His flying biography includes the phrase: ‘‘He flies calmly.’’ This is a very rare description to hear, even when talking of the best pilots. Yes, peace and wellbeing are probably the real words

to describe the character and life of Dobrovolskiy, a surname which, fittingly, means “a man of goodwill”. Blond, tall, broad-shouldered and tough, he was kind-hearted and had a contagious belly laugh. His accent remained ‘broad Odessa’, and he had a sense of humour typical of someone from that region. At the Air Force school, his friends nicknamed him ‘Odessa’, and he was proud of it.

Life was tough on Georgiy Timofeyevich Dobrovolskiy.[42] He was born on 1 June 1928 in Odessa on the coast of the Black Sea, in Ukraine. His family was Russian, and lived in the suburb of Blizhniy Melnitza (‘the mills neighbourhood’). His father Timofey Trofimovich left when Zhora was two years old, and he was raised by his mother Mariya Alekseyevna. ‘‘She is a marvellous woman,’’ he said of his mother. ‘‘She represented an ideal. She faced hardship. Without a husband, she had to work to feed us. Firstly she worked in a shop, then in a cannon factory. No matter how tough her life was, I never saw her complain, be sad, in bad mood or in despair.’’

As a little boy Zhora often asked about his father, but his mother did not say and only later did he learn from relatives that his father had been a member of Soviet counterintelligence, and one day had left home and never returned.

Zhora liked his hometown, the sea and the sky. Lying on the shore, he spent hours watching the ships pass by and enjoying the beauty of the cloud formations. He ran and played with his friends on streets which, 20 years previously, a student of the technical high school had walked – Sergey Korolev. Four years prior to Zhora’s birth, Korolev designed a light plane and dreamed of rockets and space. A quarter of a century later, they met.

‘‘I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth, and no good fairies brought me

gifts,” Dobrovolskiy observed. “Of course, I had plenty of catapults and scooters – but I made them myself.”

The Second World War had a deep impact on his life. He was 13 years old when it began for the USSR. He recalled how the ships of the Black Sea Fleet put up a heavy barrage against German bombers, illuminating the dark sky with shell bursts and the tracers of machine-gun bullets. But bombs still fell onto the city, destroying buildings and killing many people. In autumn 1941, after 73 days of defending the city, the soldiers of the Red Army and the sailors of the Black Sea Fleet were forced to abandon their positions and evacuate. In the city, only the partisan cells remained to continue to offer resistance. Zhora, who had just finished his sixth grade at high school No. 99, remembered for the rest of his life the day that the invaders entered the town in which he had been born. From behind the corner of one building he saw one young saboteur make a bomb attack on a column of tanks. He wanted so much to participate in the resistance, and soon he was in action. In his first act of sabotage, he and one of his friends punctured the tires of military trucks. But his life changed dramatically when he encountered a real partisan, and then became an enthusiastic member of the underground. He began by providing information on the movements of the enemy forces, and by carrying ammunition. His next action was much braver: one night he and a friend attacked a German soldier. However, knowing that the SS officers were the cruelest, he yearned to kill at least one of them. In February 1944 his neighbour gave him a Beretta revolver. He was so proud. But on setting out for his next action he was stopped near his home, and the revolver that he carried was found. At the local headquarters of the SS he was beaten by a rubber truncheon and subjected to electric-shock torture. He lost consciousness several times. His fingers were broken. As a result of this ordeal, his hands and fingers remained marked. He refused to name his friends, and did not disclose the location of other weapons. At his tribunal he pleaded guilty only to possessing a revolver, for which he received a 25-year sentence of hard labour. In the 23 February 1944 edition of Molya, a news sheet issued by the Nazis during the occupation of Odessa, it was reported that the Military Field Tribunal had ordered “Dobrovolskiy, Georgiy, of Odessa, 5, Pishenin Lane, 25 years of penal servitude for possession of a Beretta revolver which was in working order.” In fact, by the standards of the time, he had been treated leniently: all adult saboteurs arrested with a weapon were summarily executed.

Dobrovolskiy had resolved to leap from the lorry which was to take him away. He knew the back streets well, and was sure that he would be able to escape. But his mother came to see him off. Running alongside the truck, she cried: “Don’t worry, son. It will be all right.’’ He realised that if he tried to escape, the Nazis would seek out his mother to punish her. In fact, the situation was not without hope, because the Red Army was approaching Odessa. On the other hand, this drove the Nazis to ever greater oppression of the city. More than 20,000 people, including many prisoners, were executed, and Zhora feared that the remaining prisoners would be executed as the Nazis prepared to flee from the city. But at the last moment one of his relatives bribed a guard, and on 19 March, after less than a month in prison, Zhora managed to escape. As he made his way home, he saw a large pit full of executed prisoners just outside the city. Three weeks later, the Red Army liberated Odessa. Zhora went to join the Red Army to fight to liberate the entire country, but was refused owing to his age – he was not yet sixteen.

ft was difficult to resume the school routine after a three-year hiatus, but under pressure from his mother Zhora passed his seventh and the eighth grades. The war in Europe ended in May 1945. With a strong sense of love of the sea, he applied to enter the Odessa Nautical School but his application was submitted too late and he was unsuccessful. A friend suggested the recently opened Odessa Special Air Force School, observing that there he “would have the new uniform and, more important, good food”. Zhora therefore turned to his second love – the sky – and decided to enroll at the Air Force School. This was another of so many strange turns in his life. The Air Force School trained future military pilots. As an 18-year-old student there, Zhora flew solo for the first time. Although still in love with the sea, on discovering the beauty of the blue heavens he knew that the sky would be his life. ft was a tough time. He studied during the day, and unloaded ships in port at night. On graduating with a diploma in 1946, he had no difficulty in enrolling at the famous Chuguyev Military School for Air Force Pilots. He achieved maximum scores for his flying skills, but was not so strong on the theory side. He attempted to prepare himself for the physical loads of flying, especially liking dumbbell gymnastics and rod, jumps from a tower into water, and swimming. Remarkably, on one of the school’s breaks he had an opportunity to meet his father, who had remarried, and discovered that he had a 16-year-old half-brother, Aleksandar.

fn November 1950 Zhora graduated from Chuguyev as a fighter pilot of the Navy and was posted to the Sevastopol aviation regiment in the Donbas region, where he met many experienced pilots, even some who had participated in the Second World War, now working as instructors. Sometimes the ‘old’ and ‘young’ pilots simulated ‘dog fights’ in the air. On one such exercise, Zhora managed to escape one of the attackers commanded by a veteran pilot and then, using a complex manoeuvre, was able to get behind his ‘enemy’, becoming one of the few young pilots to ‘defeat’ a veteran. But he would remember this period of his life not for this ‘victory’, but for an unprecedented event concerning his first love: the sea. One day, while resting on a small hill enjoying the view of the stormy sea, he heard a cry for help and saw the head of girl, completely exhausted, in a foamy spray of pounding waves. Without a second’s thought, he jumped into the sea and managed to catch her before she sank. After struggling with the waves, he brought her to the shore. Meanwhile, seeing the drama, several people rushed to assist him. At first the girl was unconscious, but she soon recovered. ff he had not spotted her from his position up on the hill, she would certainly have drowned. ft was her fate to survive. Many years later, someone with the same determination would pull his body from a landed spacecraft and attempt to save his life – but in vain.

Zhora flew a variety of MiG, Yak and Lavochkin planes in all weather conditions, and often his inner peace and cool thinking enabled him to overcome difficulties. fn contrast to many other pilots, he liked parachute jumps, making 111 jumps in total. fn fact, when he joined the cosmonaut group he was appointed as an instructor for parachuting. fn October 1952, soon after finishing studies at the Evening University of Marxism-Leninism, he was posted to East Germany to defend

the border. On the NATO side, he could see American aircraft patrolling. He became fluent in German. In January 1955 he became a deputy squadron commander, responsible for political work, and soon thereafter, at the age of 27, he was promoted to the rank of captain. A local newspaper wrote about him in its serial, ‘Story of the Air Combat Masters’. In the autumn of 1956 he was posted once again, this time to the town of Valga in Estonia, pleasantly located by the Baltic Sea. He was very pedantic, always striving for perfection. With his height, stature and looks, he stood out amongst the pilots. On a visit to a local dance club he met Lyudmila Steblyova, a mathematician, and in 1957 they were married.

As a pilot and commander-educator, Zhora began to appreciate that he was weak on the theory side. He decided to enroll for a correspondence course at the Military Aeronautical Academy for Command and Navigation Staff of the Red Army Air Forces.[43]

Meanwhile, Lyudmila resumed her studies via the correspondence department of Leningrad University. In 1959 she gave a birth to daughter Marina. But when the physicians refused to permit the delighted husband and first-time father to visit his wife and baby, he found himself outside the hospital with a large bouquet of flowers. He had to resort to communicating with his wife via letters! In one, written when Marina was just a few days old, he wrote cheekily: ‘‘I don’t believe that she yet does not yet say ‘dad’. You are hiding this fact from me; confess!’’ To his father he sent a telegram – in fact, a poem – announcing the birth of his daughter.

In July 1961 he graduated from the Air Force Academy, specialising in command headquarters for the Military Air Force. One interesting detail – he passed the exam for fluency in a foreign language in German!

As an aeronautical engineer he continued to fly, served as deputy to the squadron

commander, headed the political section of the regiment, and was an instructor for parachute jumps. But he also had to become deeply involved with staff management. Although he was extremely happy, he sometimes had difficulty with some of his colleagues and would go home in the evening thoughtful and sad. With his family, however, he was stable, sensitive and attentive. Recalling this period, Lyudmila said that although he could come home exhausted, he was always ready to play with his dear daughter. “He was never violent, never rude, and never insulted me – although, of course, I wasn’t always right! Softly and kindly, he knew how to calm my anger, reducing my issues to nonexistent quarrels or pointless conflicts, and then, once the storm had abated, we laughed at the stupidity and absurdity of the dispute. He was very easy to live with.’’ His daughter Marina has many good memories: “For me, my father was the closest friend in my life. He always supported me. He used to tell everyone that he had the most beautiful daughter; that she was an excellent student; that she swam expertly; and that she was a remarkable dancer. When saying these things, he would look at me with a big smile. And naturally I would set out to learn something else in order to gain additional praise.’’

Three months before Zhora graduated from the Academy, Yuriy Gagarin became the first man to orbit the Earth, and shortly after Zhora’s graduation Gherman Titov spent an entire day in space. Across the Soviet Union, young pilots began to talk of making space flights. But Zhora, who at 33 was seven years older than Titov, was not one of them. He presumed that flying in space was for younger men. In any case, he liked to fly aircraft, liked his squadron, and liked to work with young pilots. But then in early 1962 the managers of the space programme decided to recruit military pilots possessing greater experience, test pilots, aeronautical engineers and officers knowl­edgeable of rocketry to fly the more advanced space missions planned for the future.