SOYUZ 3

Flight Crew

BEREGOVOY, Georgy Timofeyevich, 47, Soviet Air Force, pilot

Flight Log

The remarkable statistic regarding the Soyuz 1-2 debacle was that, had it been successful, the first Soviet space docking would have been achieved on a manned mission, against all previous Soviet traditions. The Soviets brought things back to normal with the unmanned, automatic docking flights of Cosmos 186-188 and 212­213 in late 1967 and the spring of 1968. It was assumed, naturally, that a manned docking was to follow. First Soyuz 2 was launched (from Pad 1) – on 25 October – secretly and unmanned. Then the following day, the oldest man in space to date, Georgy Beregovoy, boarded Soyuz 3, which was launched at 13: 34hrs local time from the other Soyuz pad (31), the first time this was used for a manned launch, and injected into a 51.6° inclination orbit. By the time it arrived, recorded pictures of his ascent appeared on Soviet television, together with the delayed announcement of the launch of Soyuz 2.

The manned docking seemed to be on, but it was not to be. Beregovoy’s Soyuz merely made an automatic approach to within 167 m (548 ft). It was revealed in 1989 that the test pilot cosmonaut had been trying to dock with Soyuz 2 while flying Soyuz 3 upside down! He had to be “rescued’’ by ground control from his precarious pre­dicament and further attempts to dock were called off. A further rendezvous was conducted before Soyuz 2 returned to Earth on 28 October. Beregovoy spent the rest of the mission making observations and showing television viewers around his space­ship, which even featured little curtains on the window of the Orbital Module. It was no coincidence that Apollo 7 had just returned to Earth having featured the “Wally, Donn and Walt’’ television shows that had earned them accolades from the US TV industry. Beregovoy, who had reached a maximum altitude of 252 km (157 miles) during the mission, the twenty-fifth manned orbital space flight, fired his retros for

145 seconds on 30 October and landed safely near Karaganda, after a flight of 3 days 22 hours 50 minutes 45 seconds.

Milestones

27th manned space flight

10th Soviet manned space flight

2nd Soyuz manned space flight

1st manned launch from Pad 31

1st Soviet launch to be shown on network television