Category Manned Spaceflight Log II—2006-2012

In all space flights, there are three phases that are common to each mission. Though the profile, objectives, and even the hardware changes, the sequence remains the same for human missions—launch, inflight, and landing.

Launch sites

There have only been three launch sites used to send humans into orbit since 1961, one each in the Soviet Union, the United States, and China. In addition, Edwards

Air Force Base in California was the home of the X-15 program from which a series of “astro-flights” were conducted in the 1960s. Nearby Mojave Airport was the departure point for the 2004 SpaceShipOne flights. Despite plans, there were no launches of military Manned Orbiting Laboratory missions in the 1960s, nor classi­fied Shuttle missions during the 1980s, from the Vandenberg Air Force Base Space Launch Complex 6 (SLC-6, also known as “Slick-6”) in California.

The first launch of a manned orbital space flight, on April 12, 1961, was from Pad 1 at Site 5 at the huge Baikonur Cosmodrome, in what was Soviet Central Asia (now known as the Republic of Kazakhstan). All subsequent Soviet/Russian manned launches have taken place from the same cosmodrome, though a few have used Pad 31 at Site 6.

Similarly, all American manned space flights have begun from the extensive launch complex at Cape Canaveral in Florida. The early missions launched from Pad 5 (used for the suborbital Mercury-Redstone launches), 14 (Mercury Atlas), 19 (Gemini Titan), or 34 (Apollo Saturn IB), with the Pad A or В sites at Launch Complex 39 serving as the launch site for all Apollo Saturn V and Skylab/ASTP Saturn IB missions. The LC-39 pads were subsequently converted to launch all 135 Shuttle missions. As changes take place once more in Florida to remove Shuttle-related launch systems and install facilities for the next generation of U. S. launch vehicles, these historic pads will be used to place new American vehicles into orbit. Across the world in China, the third launch site for manned spacecraft is located in Jiuquan and is used to support the launch of Shenzhou missions.

Using redirected lunar hardware, the Skylab space station became the first (and, to date, only) American domestic space station, another example of the long, compli­cated, and troubled American space station history within both NASA and the USAF. The military-orientated Manned Orbiting Laboratory program (utilizing a variant of the NASA Gemini spacecraft for crew transport) was canceled in 1969 after six expensive years of development and only one unmanned test flight. The NASA “civilian” space station program began quietly in the early 1960s, discard­ing the various grand plans revealed in the 1950s for giant stations circling the Earth and instead focusing upon creating payloads of scientific hardware flown on adapted Apollo spacecraft. These would supplement, but not replace, the lunar effort. Preliminary studies both within NASA and at contractor level revealed that the Apollo Command and Service Module, the Lunar Module, the Saturn family of launch vehicles, and the supportive hardware had the flexibility and potential to complete far wider missions than just sending men to the Moon for short visits to set up scientific instruments, return a few boxes of Moon rock, and plant a flag.

These ideas were soon identified as Apollo Extension (or Apollo X) missions. They were an obvious continuation to the basic lunar profile missions, which

could be flown throughout the late 1960s and into the 1970s or beyond. However, as the effort intensified to develop the hardware required to reach the Moon, hopefully before the Soviets, so too did the administrative and political pressure not to divert substantial funds away from the main Apollo lunar program. Any new program suggestions suffered accordingly. Indeed, there was so much focus on simply getting the men to the Moon and safely home that even the science intended to be conducted on the Moon was reduced to almost nothing for the first landing. This was of course partly because of the immense challenge in simply achieving the landing in the first place and a desire not to overcomplicate the first attempt. Any expansion of science could be deferred to later missions once the commitment to reach the Moon by 1970 (and beat the Soviets) had been achieved.

The studies continued, however, and in an attempt to mask their appearance as a “new start” the programs were restructured. In 1966, Apollo X and all its connotations were gathered under a new program branch, identified as the Apollo Applications Program (AAP) Office. The primary focus of this effort centered upon using spent Saturn launch vehicle stages fitted out in space as rudimentary space laboratories. There were other missions proposed, but the Orbital Workshop (OWS) concept was the flagship of the AAP program. The rocket stage intended

Early designs from the Apollo X studies.

for use as the station would be fueled and used during the launch. Once in orbit and empty, it would be decontaminated by the crew, who would arrive in a CSM ferry craft. This became known as the “wet” workshop design. NASA had to be careful to avoid promoting the space station program as a new start because of the possible threat to the budget allocation for the mainline Apollo effort. The
way round this was to identify the “new program” (that was not officially new) as one that was simply applying the hardware and skills of Apollo to a range of further missions beyond the original remit.

Most of these missions were expected to fly in Earth orbit in between the lunar missions. After the initial Apollo landing missions (probably four or five), AAP missions to lunar orbit would follow, creating an OWS there followed by 14-day missions to the surface, hopefully setting up a small research base and extended surface expeditions. Unfortunately, concerns over the cost of the main­line Apollo and the decline in both interest and support for going to the Moon by both politicians and the public signaled the end of extensive AAP operations.

By the end of 1969, the lunar landing by Apollo had indeed been accomplished, twice, but only one AAP space station remained on the manifest. Three manned missions were planned, but it would not become the primary focus until after the Apollo missions to the Moon were completed. By early 1970, AAP had been renamed Skylab and the “wet” workshop design had also changed. Now, the laboratory would be launched on a two-stage Saturn V, with the third stage pre-fitted out as a fully equipped “dry”, or unfueled, workshop. The three teams of astronauts were planned to fly 28, 56, and 56-day missions during 1973.

Skylab 1, the unmanned laboratory, was launched in May 1973 and was almost lost during the attempt, with one of the solar power arrays and micro­meteorite shields being ripped off by aerodynamic stress. Almost limping to orbit, the problems in cooling and powering up the station caused the first mission to be delayed to give NASA time to develop plans and hardware to recover the station to as near planned operating levels as possible. The success of the first and second crews in deploying the remaining array and installing protective solar shades saved Skylab, allowing a full three-mission program to be completed. The missions set new endurance records of 28 days, 59 days, and an impressive 84 days (both instead of the planned 56), rendering a potential 21-day fourth visiting mission unnecessary. The Skylab teams gained significant experience and gathered impor­tant results from Earth observations, solar studies, medical investigations, and a wide range of other experiments and research studies in materials processing, astronomy, and education.

Unfortunately, the fully functional backup laboratory, “Skylab B”, was not launched due to budget restrictions. Instead, the flight-ready module was sent to the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D. C. for public display. To this day, former astronauts who could have flown to and lived in the station are reluctant to visit the display, recalling lost opportunities. Other unflown Apollo Saturn hardware from the canceled lunar missions was allocated to the Johnson, Marshall, and Kennedy Space Centers as museum pieces. This was very disap­pointing, not only for those who had built the vehicles and those who had hoped to fly on them, but also for those who had negotiated the funding to pay for them under the Apollo program. Instead they remained on the ground, stark reminders of what might have been.

Following Skylab, the only remaining American mission firmly on the launch manifest was the docking mission with a Soviet Soyuz, which was designated the

Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. This one-off mission occurred in the summer of 1975, when Apollo “18” rendezvoused and docked with Soyuz 19. The ensuing handshake in space between astronauts and cosmonauts as they opened the con­necting hatches for the first time featured in the headlines around the world; a demonstration of growing detente between the two superpowers both on Earth and in space.

The ASTP had evolved from talks between representatives of the American and Soviet space programs in the late 1960s and early 1970s, with agreements on the exchange of data on both manned and unmanned missions. In early plans, it was suggested that an American Apollo might dock with a Soviet Salyut space station crewed by Soyuz cosmonauts. This was soon dismissed as impractical by the Soviets, since Salyut did not then have two docking ports. What was not revealed at the time was that a second-generation Salyut station was in develop­ment which did indeed feature two docking ports, a design which would not be revealed until later in the decade. Following the ASTP mission, talks continued for some years and included the possibility of docking a Shuttle orbiter to one of these, now revealed, second-generation Salyuts. Unfortunately, the political climate worsened, so talks on joint manned missions were abandoned for over a decade.

The retirement of the Shuttle in 2011 left something of a void. While any operational experience can be learned from, Shuttle operations will have little application directly to the proposed vehicles that will follow. The Shuttle system and hardware were unique and the new designs have more in common with the Apollo Command and Service Module than Shuttle orbiters. However, many of the lessons learned from the Shuttle-Міг program did have direct application to ISS operations.

For those vehicles which will eventually follow the Shuttle, a whole new learning curve might need to be scaled. By the time the new vehicles fly, those who were around for most of the Shuttle program will probably have retired, losing core experience that, like the Apollo era, will be hard to replace. There is, however, one significant difference between the transition from the Apollo era to the Shuttle era and the one from the Shuttle era to whatever replaces it.

In the 1970s, relatively few former astronauts moved to managerial roles in the space agency or the industry. Most of the engineers and managers who were at NASA during Apollo moved on to work on the Shuttle program, at least in its early years, bringing with them valued experience. A generation later, things were much different. The industry was much larger, most of the original employees at NASA had retired, and there were far more opportunities for former astronauts to move across to managerial roles, both inside and outside the agency, within the broader space program.

At the end of the Apollo era, many of the veteran astronauts, managers, and engineers decided to leave the program. In contrast, many of those who flew or managed the Shuttle are now in key positions within the space industry, working on a variety of new programs or projects including those contractors developing the Shuttle replacement. With the end of the Shuttle and some years before its replacement arrives, it is likely that more former Shuttle astronauts will retire. It will be interesting to monitor the career path of the ex-Shuttle pilots and mission specialists who climb the corporate ladder or advance in the administration of NASA and leading contractors in the coming decades. In Europe, former ESA astronauts are also beginning to move to higher administrative roles. In contrast, trying to track the progress of cosmonauts after they stop flying was always (and continues to be) difficult. Most of the military cosmonauts retire on a pension,

while the civilian engineers resume work at Energiya until they retire. A few, Uke Alexei Leonov and Vladimir Titov, secured positions in leading Russian corporate businesses.

Former NASA astronauts, including Bob Crippen, Frank Culbertson, Bill Lenoir, Brian O’Connor, Loren Shriver, Dick Truly, and more recently Charles Bolden, Mike Coat, and others have made the transition from the astronaut office to the management side of the agency and then stepped across into industry. Their personal experiences from flying in space have been applied back into the program, but at a much higher level. It will be interesting to monitor whether such moves have a lasting legacy for the future space program.

Living on a planet means “space” is all around us, a fact most people often overlook or are even still unaware of. Standing on “terra firma”, it is easy to forget that this “firm ground” is actually traveling through space on its own journey around the star we know as “sol”, or the Sun. To journey “into space” generally means traveling throughout the atmosphere to a point where you briefly see the blue sky turn black and into a condition where normal aerodynamic control surfaces such as wings, rudder, and ailerons are useless; only rocket engines can provide the impulse to move under a vacuum condition. It is a con­dition controlled by the forces of gravity pulling on objects in perpetual free fall.

The barrier between blue sky and space has been defined at different altitudes above the Earth. For some it is 50 miles (80.45 km); others state 62 miles (or 100 km), while still others claim you are not in space until you are in orbit and you cannot call yourself a true space explorer unless you have completed at least one orbit of Earth. With even more flights to the edge of the defined atmosphere planned, such as the Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo program, so the debate of what is or is not a true flight into space will continue.

There are no “typical” space flights, as each mission is different by objective and flight profile. These profiles are determined by the geographical location of the launch site, the direction (azimuth) of launch, and the particular inclination and the height of the orbit above the planet. This can result, for example, in orbits over the polar caps, or out to a distance of 35,000 km (22,000 miles) which matches the rotation of the planet. This is where many of the communications and weather satellites are located, over the relevant part of the Earth, to maximize their capacity.

Of course, trajectories for leaving Earth orbit add to the complexity of the mission. For the Apollo lunar flights, even reaching for the Moon involved studies of three main trajectories. If the launch vehicle assigned had been large enough, then a direct flight to the Moon and back could have been flown—a profile termed “direct ascent”. As this was beyond the capabilities and funding to meet the 1970 deadline, the Americans chose an alternative route. The second option was to launch elements of the lunar spacecraft on separate, smaller rockets, and then bring the spacecraft together in orbit before continuing out towards the Moon. Called “Earth orbital rendezvous”, this method was far more challenging because it would have meant developing the capability for several on time launches, rendezvous and docking, and proximity operations that would be required to make the method a success. Any delays could seriously have threa­tened President Kennedy’s deadline and fallen behind the expected Soviet competition to the Moon.

The third option was to launch a two-part spacecraft, one of them a separate lander, on one large launch vehicle into Earth orbit. This landing vehicle would then be extracted unmanned from the top of the launch vehicle where it was stored for launch. Once joined up, the combination would be sent to the Moon with a crew of three astronauts and, once in lunar orbit, two of the crew would separate the lander to complete the surface exploration program with the third astronaut remaining in orbit. Creating a lighter vehicle to land on the Moon meant a lighter vehicle to lift off from the surface and a smaller engine required to be able to do so. After rendezvous, the main spacecraft would return to Earth with the crew of three. This system, though still risky, raised questions over whether to proceed and the capability of making various safety decisions through­out the mission. This method was called “lunar orbital rendezvous” and was the method chosen for the American Apollo missions, to great success. To gain the necessary experience in orbital rendezvous, longer duration missions, and space­walking techniques NASA created the two-man Gemini program which completed 10 highly successful manned missions in Earth orbit during 1965 and 1966.

Circumlunar missions (flights around the far side of the Moon without entering orbit and then heading on back to Earth) were flown by unmanned Soviet Zond vehicles to test their lunar capabilities. Although no Soviet manned flights ever flew in competition to Apollo, it is known that the Soviets were devel­oping their own manned lunar program. Initially, cosmonauts would have fol­lowed an Earth orbital rendezvous profile, but in 1964 this was amended to a probable lunar orbital rendezvous profile. Unfortunately, while the Americans chose LOR as the best way to develop Apollo, the argument in Russia was actually over which designers would be the lead bureau rather than which method to follow. Coupled with hardware failures and the success of the Americans, this led the Soviets to cancel their manned lunar program long before any cosmonauts left the launchpad to test the lunar hardware in space.

Since Apollo 17 in 1972, every manned orbital mission to date has been in Earth orbit, either on independent flight profiles or as a docking mission to a space station. Significant experience in orbital rendezvous was achieved by the Americans during the Gemini program (1965-1966) and with the Apollo era mis­sions (1968-1975) but despite several rendezvous with satellites by the Shuttle, actual docking experience for Shuttle crews did not begin until the Shuttle-Mir program of 1995-1998, extending to the ISS assembly missions between 1998 and 2011.

For the Russians, the first manned docking occurred between Soyuz 4 and 5 in 1969, but it was as part of regular Soyuz-Salyut operations between 1971 and 1986, followed by extensive Mir operations during 1986 through 2000, that they gained significant experience of automated and manual docking. This was supple­mented by experience with docking unmanned Progress resupply craft to Salyut, Mir, and then ISS from 1978. After over 40 years of docking Soyuz (and Progress) variants to space stations, the reliable Soyuz continues to be the mainstay of Earth orbital operations. In 2011, the Shenzhou 8 demonstrated Chinese unmanned space station docking capability and was followed the next year by the first docking of a crew, who completed both a manual and automated docking to Tiangong 1 aboard Shenzhou 9. Rendezvous and docking, plus station-keeping and proximity operations will remain a focal point of Earth orbital operations for the rest of this decade, 50 years after they were first demonstrated during Project Gemini.

While the Americans were completing their final excursions on the Moon, setting records on Skylab, and preparing to dock with Soyuz, the Soviets were recovering from the setback not only of Salyut 1, but also the officially unannounced launch failure of the second Salyut in July 1972. The in-orbit failure of the first Almaz station in April 1973 (which had been designated Salyut 2 to disguise its military objectives) was followed by the loss of a third Salyut just a month later. The latter one failed so soon after entering orbit that it was not assigned a Salyut designa­tion but instead was identified as Cosmos 557 to once again mask its true, failed mission. These frustrating setbacks were balanced, to a degree, by the successful solo flights of two manned Soyuz missions. In September 1973, Soyuz 12 evaluated the new improvements to the basic ferry design in a pre-announced and planned two-day test flight. This was followed by the week-long Soyuz 13 astronomical research mission in December 1973.

Things began to look up for the Soviets from 1974, with the launch of another Almaz (designated Salyut 3). Then came a civilian station (Salyut 4) in 1975 and another Almaz (Salyut 5) in 1976. A series of eight Soyuz ferry craft, each carry­ing a two-man crew, supported operations with these stations. The reduction from

the previous three-man team was a direct result of the findings of the Soyuz 11 disaster, which required the cosmonauts to be protected in pressure suits. The additional support equipment replaced the mass of a third crew member, until an improved Soyuz variant could be introduced.

Two missions were flown to Salyut 3 in 1974, with the Soyuz 14 crew complet­ing a successful 14-day residency and the first totally successful Soviet space station mission. But Soyuz 15 failed to dock with the station and came home after just two days, while Soyuz 16 was a dress rehearsal for the ASTP Soyuz mission and not associated with any Salyut. In early February 1975, the Soyuz 17 crew completed a 30-day mission to Salyut 4, followed just over three months later by the Soyuz 18 crew with a 63-day residency. This made Salyut 4 the first Soviet space station to host two resident crews. In between, though, came the first recorded launch abort of a manned mission, on April 5, 1975, when the original “Soyuz 18” suffered separation failure of a spent rocket stage. The ascent had to be aborted and the crew endured a rather hair-raising 20-minute ballistic trajectory flight and recovery near the border with China. The crew survived the ordeal but it was their backup crew who eventually flew the 63-day replacement mission. Their landing, just after the return of the Soyuz 19 ASTP crew, demonstrated Soviet ability to handle two separate manned space missions at the same time. The final mission to Salyut 4 was the unmanned Soyuz 20, which further tested the proposed robotic resupply missions being planned for the next-generation Salyut station.

The next Soviet station (Salyut 5) was a military Almaz version, with Soyuz 21 completing a 49-day visit in 1976, followed by an 18-day visit by Soyuz 24 early the following year. As with all the previous Salyuts, there were setbacks as well as successes. The Soyuz 21 crew were forced to return earlier than planned, due to “sensory deprivation” according to the official line, and reports that the crew encountered an “acrid odor” inside the station. This must have been resolved because two months after the crew came home a second Soyuz was launched to the station. Unfortunately, Soyuz 23 only completed a two-day flight after failing to dock with the station. This mission is remembered more for its hazardous landing and recovery than its achievements in orbit. The landing occurred during a snowstorm and, to make things worse, on a frozen lake. The recovery effort was one of the most challenging ever encountered during a manned space flight and, although both cosmonauts survived their ordeal, neither ever flew in space again.

Partially in preparation for the next Salyut and also to fly a backup spacecraft that had previously been assigned to the ASTP, another “solo” Soyuz was flown in September 1976 to test new equipment and procedures. During the Soyuz 22 mission, the two cosmonauts evaluated a new Earth terrain camera intended for the forthcoming second-generation Salyut station. At the time, reports indicated that the flight was part of a planned series of “solo” scientific Soyuz missions flown independently of space station operations, but this proved to be the final “solo” Soyuz mission. Perhaps this was misunderstood information, or a move by the Soviets to mask the fact that the two solo Soyuz missions of Soyuz 13 (astro – physical) and Soyuz 22 (Earth resources) were flown because of the absence of a civilian Salyut (and to utilize available hardware approaching the end of its operational lifetime). In any event these missions, along with Soyuz 6 (space welding) and Soyuz 9 (biomedical), provided the Soviets with the chance to conduct research relevant to their space station program in more depth.

Another interesting development during Soyuz 22 was an official release revealing that candidates from Eastern Bloc countries would soon be selected as cosmonauts (within a program known as Interkosmos), to fly on future Salyut missions with Soviet commanders. This was the first time a cosmonaut selection process, albeit international, had been announced ahead of time. It appeared to be in direct response to the news that American and international candidates would be selected for dedicated science missions, or to accompany specific payloads, flown on the Space Shuttle. These “part-time” astronauts would become known as payload specialists, while their cosmonaut equivalent would be known as cosmonaut researcher. With new NASA selections for career astronauts for the Shuttle pending, a new era of space exploration was rapidly approaching.

In September 1977, one of the most successful space stations, Salyut 6, was launched. Over the next four years, the program would include 18 Soyuz missions and the first flights of the new unmanned resupply craft—Progress—based on the Soyuz design. To accommodate this increase of traffic, the new Salyut featured two docking ports, in theory to allow crews and vehicles to be exchanged for continuous manning of the station. On Salyut 6, however, although some Soyuz vehicles were replaced for fresh vehicles on orbit as their operational life came to an end, leaving a new vehicle with the resident crew; the expected exchange of resident crews did not occur.

What was introduced on this station was EVA capability, with the completion of the first space walks by cosmonauts since 1969. There was a series of missions flown by representatives of the Interkosmos countries between 1978 and 1981 and new world endurance records were set of 96, 140, 175, and then 185 days. Late in 1980, a short evaluation mission was flown to confirm that the station could support one final residence of 75 days which would allow the crew to host the final two Interkosmos missions. The Salyut 6 program also included an unmanned test flight of the new Soyuz variant (Soyuz T) and three test missions (Soyuz T2, T3, and T4) to confirm its operational integrity, prior to full operations with the next Salyut. Towards the end of the station’s operational fife, it acquired the first add-on module (Kosmos 1267), which was developed from an intended military manned spacecraft and ferry vehicle but now designed to test the potential for adding scientific modules to future space stations and to evaluate the structural integrity between two such vehicles.

In 2011, the 50th anniversary of manned space flight was celebrated. With it came the retirement of Shuttle and the transition of ISS from a construction site to a fully operational science research facility. It is too early to fully analyze what lessons have been learned from this decade as we are not yet a third of the way through it, but based on operations on the station during the previous decade, the difficulties of managing time on the facility remain. Even with a six person crew and full experiment facilities attached, there is still too much time spent in main­tenance, repair and cleaning. Locating items and keeping track of the inventory only works, even with the help of a barcoding recording system, if the data is input correctly. This was a lesson learned back in the days of Skylab, but has it

fully translated to today’s space station? Exercise and fitness programs in prepara­tion for the return home also impact on crew time for science and research, and anything new can disrupt even the most trained and prepared crew. Visiting crews can be a welcome relief to the daily routine on station, but they also impede the natural flow of the main crew built up over time and it takes a while for a new crew to get up to speed.

Between the return of the American Skylab 4 astronauts in February 1974 and astronaut Norman Thagard launching to Mir in March 1995, the flow of experience of space station operations was lost by the Americans and the skills had to be learned all over again. Thagard commented, after coming home from a challenging mission in July 1995: “As we move into the era of long duration space flights, we need to consider that the problem of conducting complex experiments with little training is unavoidable.” Thagard went on to explain that if a mission is long in duration, the first sessions of some experiments may not be conducted for some months after last training on them and if these experiments were in early development or preparation, the crews may not have even trained on them at all. This was first recognized by the Skylab astronauts and had long been known by the Soviets. It could be a new challenge as crews move out from Earth and do not conduct the experiments they trained for until some months after their mission began.

As the sixth decade continues, new lessons will be learned, continuing to expand the skills and knowledge of the first fifty years. These lessons can hopefully be applied not only to future ISS and Tiangong expeditions, but also to follow-on programs which take us deeper into space. Despite over 50 years of human exploration of space we have still only taken a few steps in the trail first pioneered by Gagarin. With each new space flight a further step forward is taken, but these missions are destined for future entries in the log book of manned space flight.