1970—SOYUZ 9—LONG-DURATION FLIGHT TO BEAT GEMINI 7

The sole objective of the flight of Soyuz 9 was to set a new spaceflight endurance record, and beat the previous best of fourteen days that had been set by Gemini 7 five years previously. The crew consisted of commander Andrian Nikolayev and flight engineer Vitali Sevastyanov. Nikolayev had previously flown on Vostok 3, and he was married to cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova. Sevastyanov was making his first flight. The Soyuz had been specially modified to undertake this long-endurance flight: its docking system had been removed, and a new larger life support system had been installed. The already cramped orbital module had also been fitted with exercise equipment and extra storage racks, as well as additional carbon dioxide scrubbers. The crew launched successfully on 1 June 1970, and immediately started work on their extensive suite of scientific experiments. Unfortunately, they devoted so much of their time to experiments that they neglected their physical exercise program, with the result that when they landed eighteen days later they were unable to stand and took several weeks to recover fully. Of course, the flight was not just about testing the ability of the human body to withstand weightlessness over an extended period, it was equally important that the Soyuz spacecraft prove itself to be capable of long stays in orbit because if it was to progress to acting as a ferry between the ground and an orbiting space station, it would have to remain in space for long periods. With the mission successfully completed, confidence in the Soyuz design was boosted. However, there was still much to learn about long-duration flight if cosmonauts on missions to space stations were to avoid the pitfalls of the Soyuz 9 crew.