Accidents and emergencies on Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Accidents and emergencies on Russian Soyuz spacecraft. In what year did the crew of Soyuz 11 die?
Warm June day in 1971. The Soyuz 11 descent module made its planned landing. At mission control, everyone applauded, eagerly awaiting the crew's appearance on the air. At that moment, no one yet suspected that the Soviet cosmonautics would soon be shaken by the biggest tragedy in its entire history.
Long preparation for the flight
Between 1957 and 1975, there was intense competition between the USSR and the United States in the field of space exploration. After three unsuccessful launches of the N-1 rocket, it became clear: the Soviet Union lost to the Americans in the lunar race. Work in this direction was quietly closed down, concentrating on the construction of orbital stations.
The first Salyut spacecraft was successfully launched into orbit in the winter of 1971. The next goal was divided into four stages: prepare the crew, send them to the station, successfully dock with it and then conduct a series of studies in outer space for several weeks.
The docking of the first Soyuz 10 spacecraft was unsuccessful due to malfunctions in the docking unit. Nevertheless, the astronauts managed to return to Earth, and their task fell on the shoulders of the next crew.
Its commander, Alexey Leonov, visited the design bureau every day and looked forward to the launch. However, fate decreed otherwise. Three days before the flight, flight engineer Valery Kubasov’s doctors discovered a strange spot on an X-ray of his lungs. There was no time left to clarify the diagnosis, and it was necessary to urgently look for a replacement.
The question of who will now fly into space was being decided in power circles. The State Commission made its choice at the very last moment, only 11 hours before the launch. Her decision was extremely unexpected: the crew was completely changed, and now Georgy Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkov and Viktor Patsayev were going into space.
Life on Salyut 1: what awaited the cosmonauts at the Salyut OKS
The launch of Soyuz 11 took place on June 6, 1971 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. At that time, pilots went into space in ordinary flight suits, because the design of the ship did not allow for the use of spacesuits. If there was any oxygen leak, the crew was doomed.
The next day after the launch, the difficult docking stage began. On the morning of June 7, the remote control activated the program responsible for rendezvous with the Salyut station. When no more than 100 meters remained to it, the crew switched to manual control of the ship and an hour later successfully docked with the OKS.
"The crew of Soyuz-11.
After this, a new stage in space exploration began - now there was a full-fledged scientific station in orbit. Dobrovolsky transmitted news of the successful docking to Earth, and his team began re-opening the premises.
The astronauts' schedule was detailed. Every day they conducted research and biomedical experiments. Television reports from the Earth were regularly carried out directly from the station.
On June 26 (i.e. exactly 20 days later), the crew of Soyuz 11 became a new record holder for flight range and duration of stay in space. There are 4 days left until the end of their mission. Communication with the Control Center was stable, and there were no signs of trouble.
The way home and the tragic death of the crew
On June 29, the order to complete the mission came. The crew transferred all research records aboard Soyuz 11 and took their places. The undocking was successful, which Dobrovolsky reported to the Control Center. Everyone was in high spirits. Vladislav Volkov even joked on air: “See you on Earth, and prepare some cognac.”
After disconnection, the flight proceeded as planned. The braking system was launched in a timely manner, and the descent module separated from the main compartment. After this, communication with the crew stopped.
Those who were expecting the astronauts on Earth were not particularly alarmed. When the ship enters the atmosphere, a wave of plasma rolls across its hull and the communication antennas burn out. Just a normal situation, communication should resume soon.
The parachute opened strictly according to schedule, but “Yantari” (this is the crew’s call sign) was still silent. The silence on the air began to get annoying. After the descent apparatus landed, rescuers and doctors almost immediately ran up to him. There was no response to the knock on the casing, so the hatch had to be opened in emergency mode.
A terrible picture appeared before my eyes: Dobrovolsky, Patsayev and Volkov were sitting dead in their chairs. The tragedy shocked everyone with its inexplicability. After all, the landing went according to plan, and until recently the cosmonauts were in touch. Death occurred from an almost instantaneous air leak. However, what caused it was not yet known.
The special commission literally reconstructed in seconds what actually happened. It turned out that during landing the crew discovered an air leak through the ventilation valve above the commander's seat.
They had no time left to close it: this required 55 seconds for a healthy person, and there were no spacesuits or even oxygen masks in the equipment.
The medical commission found traces of cerebral hemorrhage and damage to the eardrums in all the victims. The air dissolved in the blood literally boiled and clogged the blood vessels, even entering the chambers of the heart.
To find a technical malfunction that caused the valve to depressurize, the commission conducted more than 1,000 experiments with the involvement of the manufacturer. At the same time, the KGB was working on a variant of deliberate sabotage.
However, none of these versions have been confirmed. Elementary negligence at work played a role here. Checking the condition of the Soyuz, it turned out that many of the nuts were simply not tightened properly, which led to the failure of the valve.
The day after the tragedy, all USSR newspapers were published with black mourning frames, and all space flights were stopped for 28 months. Now the mandatory equipment for cosmonauts included spacesuits, but at the cost of this was the lives of three pilots who never saw the bright summer sun on their native Earth.
1971
Their farewell greetings.
Ship commander Georgy Dobrovolsky, 43 years old, resident of Odessa, during the occupation of the city by the Romanians, underground worker, was arrested, escaped with the help of local residents, member of the second cosmonaut corps.
Research engineer Viktor Patsayev, 38 years old, from Aktyubinsk, graduated from the Penza Industrial Institute in 1955, now the Penza State Institute. The man who in 1955 headed the department from which Patsayev graduated took my son’s exam.
Flight engineer Vladimir Volkov, 35 years old, Muscovite, the youngest, but also the most experienced - two years earlier he flew as a flight engineer on Soyuz-7 during the group flight of Soyuz numbered “6”, “7” and “8”.
Soyuz-11 launched on June 6 and the next day managed to successfully dock with the first Soviet space orbital station, Salyut-1. A month and a half earlier, the Soyuz-10 spacecraft had already tried to dock with it, but... This time everything went well. True, the ventilation unit at the station did not work well, but it was repaired.
From the blog, 1971
After this, the crew began the planned work. The stay at the station was productive and included TV communication with the Earth. However, on the 11th day there was a fire, and it was decided to abort the flight and leave the station. In this regard, monitoring from orbit of the takeoff of the N-1 rocket was canceled.
At the end of the work period, on June 29, 1971, Soyuz-11 began to prepare for descent. When the hatch was closed, the “Hatch open” banner continued to light up. The control center assumed that the sensor on the edge of the hatch had broken down, the crew blocked it and checked the tightness by releasing pressure in the living compartment.
On June 29 at 21:25:15 UHF Soyuz-11 separated from the station. The ship's commander reported this to the control center.
On June 30 at 01:35:24 UHF, the ship's engine was turned on for braking and worked for the specified time.
01:47:28 UHF the ship's compartments were separated and communication with the crew was interrupted.
01:54 UHF air defense tracking station detected the aircraft 2200 km from the estimated landing site.
02:02:54 UHF, at an altitude of about 7 km, the main parachute of the SA opened, it was soon discovered by the meeting helicopters, the crew did not make contact.
02:16:52 soft landing engines fired, the flight ended in the specified area. The search team found the crew without signs of life. Resuscitation measures were carried out, but were unsuccessful: tissue damage due to decompression sickness turned out to be incompatible with life. A subsequent autopsy revealed the presence of air bubbles throughout the astronauts' circulatory system, air in the chambers of the heart, and burst eardrums.
All transmitters and receivers in the Soyuz-11 cabin were turned off. The shoulder belts of all three crew members were unfastened, and Dobrovolsky's belts were mixed up and only the upper waist buckle was fastened. One of the two ventilation valves was in the open position. This valve normally opens during parachute to equalize the outboard atmospheric pressure with the pressure in the descent vehicle. Experts did not find any other deviations from the norm.
To investigate the causes of the disaster, a Government Commission was created under the chairmanship of Academician Mstislav Keldysh.
An analysis of the records of the Mir autonomous on-board measurement recorder showed that from the moment the compartments were separated at an altitude of more than 150 km, the pressure in the SA began to decrease sharply, and within 115 seconds dropped to 50 mm Hg. Art. The rate of pressure decrease corresponded to the open ventilation valve. The commission came to a clear conclusion: when separating the compartments, the ventilation valve opened prematurely and without authorization. As a result, the descent module depressurized, and this led to the death of the astronauts.
This ventilation valve was normally opened at a safe height by detonating the squib. The presumptive reason for the premature activation of the valve opening squib, according to the memoirs of B. Chertok, was a shock wave propagating through the metal of the body of the descent vehicle. The shock wave was generated by the detonation of squibs separating the compartments of the Soyuz spacecraft. However, subsequent ground tests failed to reproduce this hypothesis. Numerous squib explosions did not cause detonation of the squib, which opens the ventilation valves. Therefore, this incident was proposed to be considered a difficult to reproduce and unlikely event. However, the design of the ventilation valves was improved in the future.
The position of the bodies of the crew members indicated that they were trying to eliminate the leak, however, in the extreme conditions of the fog that filled the cabin after depressurization, severe pain throughout the body due to acute decompression sickness and quickly lost hearing due to burst eardrums, the astronauts did not close the that valve and lost time on this. When Georgy Dobrovolsky (according to other sources, Viktor Patsayev) discovered the true cause of the depressurization, he no longer had enough time to eliminate it.
In addition, the location of the valve and control knobs was such that it was necessary to leave the chair to operate them. This drawback was pointed out by test pilots, for whom this is unacceptable.
After the disaster, there was a 27-month break in Soyuz launches (the next manned spacecraft, Soyuz-12, was launched on September 27, 1973). During this time, many concepts were revised: the layout of the ship's controls changed, becoming more ergonomic; Ascent and descent operations began to be carried out only in spacesuits, the crew began to consist of two people (part of the place of the third crew member was taken by the installation of autonomous life support for light spacesuits, in which a noticeable volume was occupied by cylinders with a supply of compressed oxygen).
Viktor Patsayev is the only graduate of Penza universities who became an astronaut. Alexander Samokutyaev, the first cosmonaut born in Penza, studied at the Polytechnic for only a year.
The memory of the dead cosmonauts was immortalized in Moscow (Cosmonaut Volkov Street) and Odessa (Dobrovolsky Avenue). Patsaev’s memory is immortalized in the names of streets throughout the former USSR; a bust was erected to him in Aktyubinsk, and in Penza there is Patsaev Street, with a memorial plaque installed on the first building of the Polytechnic University.
Georgy Timofeevich Dobrovolsky
Born in Odessa into a working-class family in 1928, he grew up without a father. The war found the future cosmonaut at the age of 13. Georgy dug trenches, extinguished lighters, helped defend his hometown, and when Odessa was finally surrendered, he decided to fight the invaders in the ranks of the underground. He got hold of a pistol, but did not have time to use it. He was captured during a raid, beaten and sentenced to 25 years of hard labor for carrying weapons. Shortly before the liberation of the city, he managed to escape and hide using false documents. After the war, he entered the Odessa Special Air Force School, became a good military pilot, and in January 1963 he was enrolled in the cosmonaut corps. Intensely, with full dedication, he studied the intricacies of the new “space” business for 8 years until that fateful day when the State Commission approved him as the commander of the crew of the Soyuz-11 spacecraft and the orbital manned scientific station Salyut.
On June 30, 1971, the descent module of the Soyuz-11 spacecraft landed. Joyful applause was heard in the Mission Control Center. No one imagined that the Soviet cosmonautics would face the biggest tragedy in its history. Three astronauts were found dead. What happened on the spaceship? Cosmonauts Alexey Leonov, Georgy Grechko, Vladimir Shatalov and others talk about this.
TV company "Ostankino" commissioned by the TV and radio company "Petersburg-5 Channel".
Director: Sergey Kozhevnikov. Year of manufacture: 2008
From the diaries of N.P. Kamanin (“Hidden Space”)
An analysis of the investigation materials at my disposal - records of the Mir on-board equipment, telemetry data, a report on the state of the cabin, a medical report on the cause of death of the cosmonauts - allows me to imagine what could have happened on board Soyuz-11 within 25-30 seconds after separating its compartments.
The working cycle of the TDU ends, the crew feels an increase in overloads - which means the ship has begun to descend. Everything is fine on board, but the cosmonauts, remembering the recent troubles with the transfer hatch, are keeping an eye on the pressure in the cabin. You hear a pop - there is separation! But what is it? The pressure in the cabin begins to drop quickly... Depressurization! Having unfastened his seat belts, Dobrovolsky rushes to the hatch. The hatch is sealed, but the pressure continues to drop, and the whistle of air escaping into space can be heard. Because of the noise of the switched on transmitters and receivers, it is impossible to understand: where is the air whistling? Volkov and Patsayev unfasten their shoulder straps and turn off the radio equipment. The whistling of air is heard above the commander's chair - where the ventilation valve is located. Dobrovolsky and Patsayev try to close the valve, but, exhausted, they fall into their chairs. Dobrovolsky, losing consciousness, still manages to fasten the waist lock of the tangled belts...”
Soviet cosmonautics, with all its successes and failures, developed in an atmosphere of complete secrecy and disinformation. Now archives are being opened, memoirs are being published, reminiscences are being published, and foreign sources of information are becoming available. It became possible not only to learn something previously unknown, but also to compare and analyze. Identify inaccuracies and sometimes lies.
Here are excerpts from five different sources about the events surrounding the completion of the flight of the Soyuz-11 spacecraft. About the state of communication with the Soyuz during the descent and about the participation (more precisely, non-participation) of SKI OMER vessels in accompanying the descent.
1) B. Chertok. "Rockets and People":
« The undocking command was to be issued on June 29 at 21:25. After separation from the station, two orbits are retracted to prepare for descent. The activation of the SKTDU for braking will take place at 1 hour 47 minutes on June 30th.
Everything went smoothly and according to schedule. The naval ship stations received information from the spacecraft flying over them and promptly reported that the braking engine was activated at the estimated time and was turned off from the integrator.
After turning off the engine, the spacecraft left the communication zone with ships located in the Atlantic. A division was taking place over Africa.”
2) N.P. Kamanin, “Hidden Space”:
According to the descent program, the TDU should turn on at 01:35:24 and turn off after 187 seconds. Everyone is eagerly awaiting reports on the switching on and off of the TDU, Shatalov persistently calls Yantar for communication, but the crew is silent... At 01:47:28, the separation of the ship should occur (the instrument and household compartments are separated from the descent vehicle), but reports on there is no division. It is not clear whether Soyuz-11 descended or whether it remained in orbit? The time for the communication session arrives (01:49:37-02:04:07), provided in case the spacecraft does not leave orbit. An oppressive silence reigns in the hall - there is still no communication with the crew and no new data about Soyuz-11. Everyone understands: something happened on the ship, but no one knows what exactly. The minutes of waiting drag on terribly slowly... "
3) Retelling an excerpt from the book by Grujica S. Ivanovich “Salyut - The First Space Station. Triumph and Tragedy", Springer Praxis Publishing, UK, 2007 (pp. 268-272):
“The coordinates of the vessels on the 29th are usual for the landing orbit:
“Bezhitsa” - 1.5°S, 13°W, “Kegostrov” - 22°S, 24°W
Since the landing was planned for July 1, Bezhitsa was allowed to leave on June 29 to replenish supplies, and Kegostrov was ordered to replace Bezhitsa. There was enough time to get to the point.
Mishin decided, allegedly on the advice of ballisticians, to shorten the flight duration by one day and, in addition, to move the landing from the second (from the moment of undocking) to the third orbit (why and when is not clear from the text).
The landing turn turned out to be 22 degrees. to the west. Having a theoretical radius of the communication zone of 15 degrees, but in fact no more than 10 degrees, neither Kegostrov nor Bezhitsa saw Soyuz-11. "ASK was stationed at Halifax and did not work during landing."
4) O.M. Pavlenko, “Ocean supports of space bridges”, VVM, St. Petersburg (to be published).
“On July 26, 1971, in the Gulf of Guinea, the R/V Bezhitsa, having received permission, left the Soyuz-11 operating point. It provided control of the operation of the TDU on the second landing orbit. ... The research vessel set course for Las Palmas. ... After 12 hours, an encrypted message was received... “Immediately return to the work point on the third landing orbit.” ... Now neither “Bezhitsa” nor “Kegostrov” were able to reach the new operating point. ... Only Kegostrov could come closest to the new point 14N 22W. On June 27, he received a radiogram (to go there). He managed to reach the point 8.43N 18.09W and receive telemetry via the HF radio channel.”
5) Rifat Saidgazov (“Kegostrov”), “New Kama”, Elabuga:
“On that tragic night, June 30, I, as usual, sat at my workplace in the receiving radio center, auditorily monitoring the passage of radio signals carrying telemetric information from the Soyuz-11 ship... On the penultimate orbit before landing, our ship’s receivers Telemetry signals from the Soyuz were not received. Only my equipment recorded them, and at the same time I recorded them on magnetic tape. The telemetry signals from the last orbit were again not received. But they went through again and were recorded on my equipment, only for some reason they were 10-15 minutes behind schedule.”
Chertok writes that everything was normal and the descent module was flying over Africa(!).
Kamanin is about the loss of connection.
Grujica S.Ivanovich notes oddities with the arrangement of ships. Pavlenko explains. There is a discrepancy in dates between them.
Here is a map of the placement and movement of ships on the Soyuz-11 landing orbit, built on data from Grujica S. Ivanovich and O. M. Pavlenko:
What immediately catches your eye:
- “The refugee,” if she ran to Las Palmas, ended up in just the right area and on time.
- “Kegostrov” was unable to cover almost 2 thousand miles in two or three days of forced travel.
“Bezhitsa” disappeared somewhere, “Kegostrov” could only receive HF telemetry. Kamanin does not confirm telemetry reception. And at Chertok - everything is OK!
Questions and assumptions arise:
What was going on at the control center? Why did you decide to postpone the landing date? Was it due to poor conditions at the station caused by smoke or fire damage? Or did they fight there, on the Soyuz?
Why was the landing orbit moved? To land during daylight hours or because of delays in closing the hatch?
One gets the impression that the situation was so abnormal that they simply forgot about the fleet, about the need to receive telemetry signals and maintain VHF communication with the descent vehicle at the stage of braking and descent. Just to plant it!..
Vladislav Nikolaevich Volkov
Born in 1935 in Moscow. He became a cosmonaut not through the “line of pilots”, but through the “line of civilian specialists”. He studied at the Moscow Aviation Institute, worked at OKB-1 (Korolev Design Bureau), participated in the creation of many samples of space technology, including the Vostok and Voskhod spacecraft, enlisted in the cosmonaut corps in 1966, and made his first space mission in 1969. flight as a flight engineer of the Soyuz-7 spacecraft. He managed to write a book about space, “Stepping into the Sky” (1971).
Viktor Ivanovich Patsaev
Born in 1933 in Aktyubinsk (now Aktobe, Kazakhstan). He also became a cosmonaut through “civilian specialists” (he studied at the Penza Industrial Institute, worked as an astronomer (became the first astronomer in the world to work in space), participated in the design of instruments for meteorological rockets, and also worked at OKB-1. In 1968 he was admitted to cosmonaut squad.
, 1971
According to the preliminary conclusion of doctor Anatoly Lebedev, made at the landing site, the crew died from a sharp decrease in pressure in the ship's cabin. All transmitters and receivers in the Soyuz-11 cabin were turned off. The shoulder belts of all three crew members were unfastened, and Dobrovolsky's belts were mixed up and only the upper waist buckle was fastened. One of the two ventilation valves was in the open position. This valve opens during parachute to equalize the outside atmospheric pressure with the pressure in the descent vehicle. Experts did not find any other deviations from the norm...
Report of the death of the crew. From the blog, 1971 After the disaster, there was a 27-month break in Soyuz spacecraft launches - the next manned spacecraft, Soyuz-12, was launched on September 27, 1973. During this time, many concepts were revised: the layout of the ship's controls changed, becoming more ergonomic; Ascent and descent operations began to be carried out only in spacesuits, the crew began to consist of two people. Partially, the place of the third crew member was taken by the installation of autonomous life support for light spacesuits, in which a noticeable volume was occupied by a cryogenic tank with a supply of air.
Funeral of astronauts. From the blog, 1971 Disaster of the Soyuz-11 spacecraft
On June 30, 1971, the Soyuz-11 descent module depressurized in the upper atmosphere. All crew members - Georgy Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkov, Viktor Patsayev - died.
On April 19, 1971, the USSR launched the world's first long-term orbital station, Salyut-1, into space. The history of this station is full of drama. It started with the fact that when it was put into orbit, the compartment with scientific equipment, where there was a solar telescope and other astrophysical instruments, did not open. The compartment remained blocked.
Next, we had to work out the technique of docking the station and the Soyuz transport ship. The first such flight took place on April 23, 1971. V. Shatalov, A. Eliseev and N. Rukavishnikov on the Soyuz-10 ship moored to the station, but after five and a half hours of joint flight the devices had to be separated: due to problems in the docking station, the cosmonauts were unable to board the Salyut , they returned to Earth.
It was the turn of the next crew - A. Leonov, V. Kubasov and P. Kolodin. Their backups were G. Dobrovolsky, V. Volkov and V. Patsaev. In May 1971, the preparation of the crews for the flight - its duration should exceed the famous 18-day one by A. Nikolaev and V. Sevastyanov - came to an end. Everything went well: the cosmonauts went to Baikonur, “settled in” the transport ship and the real ship.
Three days before the launch, the crews had to undergo a pre-flight medical examination. And here the unexpected happened: doctors discovered a small inflammatory focus in Kubasov’s lungs. The cosmonaut felt fine, did not complain, so the doctors’ verdict was met with hostility - after all, he was in the main crew and already “felt” the launch, and now he was, in fact, removed from the flight.
The chairman of the State Commission, Kerim Kerimov, listened to the doctors’ report, to put it mildly, without enthusiasm: the removal of one cosmonaut from the flight meant, according to unwritten rules, the replacement of the entire crew, and this in turn entailed a whole range of work on the ship, which had already been prepared for the main crew. A. Leonov was also annoyed; he demanded that flight engineer Volkov fly instead of flight engineer Kubasov. However, chief designer Mishin did not agree with him. In the end, they decided that backups would fly - Dobrovolsky, Volkov, Patsayev.
According to Vera Aleksandrovna Patsaeva, her husband was very happy when he learned that he was flying to the station. “He really wanted to go to space. But their crew was the main one for the second flight to the Salyut station, and on this basis there were disagreements with Volkov. After all, Vladislav already had a flight behind him, was writing a book about it and did not want to rush.”
About six months earlier, Vladislav Volkov and Viktor Patsayev, along with their wives and children, were vacationing together in a boarding house in Istra. Vera Alexandrovna recalls how one day they sat up until late in the evening, opened up, and Vladislav admitted: “I’m glad I won’t fly to the first station.” - "Why?" - Patsayeva was surprised. “I had a prediction that I would die,” he replied.
On June 5, 1971, on the eve of the flight, at the traditional meeting with the launch team of the cosmodrome (many traditions, like this one, were laid down by S.P. Korolev from the first flights into space), the commander of the spacecraft Dobrovolsky spoke. A. Leonov's crew took the position of backup.
Let’s give the Baikonur team their due: three days before the launch, they managed to carry out the entire range of work for the new crew.
June 6: a brief report from the commander - and now the cosmonauts appeared on the upper platform of the service farms. The last farewell waves of hands, the last glances at the Earth before the start. Soyuz-11 launched exactly at the appointed time - at 7.55.
A day later, Dobrovolsky, Volkov and Patsayev, already on the Salyut, began to implement the program. And it was fascinating: for the first time, the crew was creating, in fact, a long-term orbital laboratory. Moreover, the main task - automatic rendezvous with the Salyut-1 station, docking and transfer of the crew to the orbital station - has already been completed.
The crew is not destined to talk about their flight. But the surviving documents make it possible to recreate day by day the event and the very atmosphere of the star voyage. Behind the usual “Everything is fine”, “There is complete order on board”, which invariably sounded in radio and television reports from orbit, there was grueling work, sometimes on the verge of the possible.
The astronauts completed a rich program of scientific, military, medical and technical experiments. At the same time, as they wrote later, something did not work out in the crew. In Dobrovolsky’s notebook, in particular, they found an entry: “If this is compatibility, then what is incompatibility?” True, the commander did it in the first and most difficult week of his stay at the station: extreme conditions of weightlessness, annoying foreign odors on board the station that had not yet been inhabited, a program planned literally to the minute. The astronauts worked around the clock, in shifts. And the overstrain of those days apparently took its toll.
There were some incidents. There was a fire at the orbital station - power cables caught fire and acrid smoke poured out. The cosmonauts barely had time to move into the descent vehicle and were already preparing for an emergency evacuation.
“Dobrovolsky had a wonderful character: he knew how to turn everything into a joke,” says V. Patsaeva. - Probably, not everyone knows that an emergency occurred on board the Salyut station - the wiring caught fire. Then Volkov transmitted a message to Earth: they have a fire, and they will descend. Georgy did not argue, although together with Vitya he continued to look for the cause of the fire. They eventually found her and eliminated her. The flight continued."
By the end of June 29 everything is ready to return to Earth; the crew was congratulated on the successful completion of the program. After control checks of the sealing of the descent module before undocking, Soyuz-11 received the go-ahead to “departure” from the station. At 21.28 Moscow time, the Soyuz undocked from the Salyut.
Fragments of some communication sessions between the ground (call sign “Zarya”) and the crew (call sign “Yantar”) were first published on the pages of the Government Gazette:
"30 June. “Zarya”: “To the Ambers” - everyone; From undocking to landing, be sure to continuously report on your well-being and the results of your observations. Continuous reporting. Got it?
“Yantar-2” (V. Volkov): We understand, we understand... I see rain, I see rain! I saw it great. Shines.
"Zarya": Write down the time - 01.47.27.
"Yantar-2": While the Earth is not visible, not yet visible.
Zarya: How is orientation going?
"Yantar-2": We saw the Earth, we saw it!
"Zarya": Okay, don't rush.
"Yantar-2": "Zarya", I am "Yantar-2". We started orientation. The rain is hanging on the right.
"Yantar-2": Flies great, beautiful!
“Yantar-3” (V. Patsaev): “Zarya”, I’m third. I can see the horizon along the lower edge of the window.
“Zarya”: “Yantar”, I remind you once again of the orientation - zero - one hundred and eighty degrees.
"Yantar-2": Zero - one hundred and eighty degrees.
"Zarya": We understood correctly.
"Yantar-2": The "Descent" banner is lit.
"Zarya": Let it burn. Everything is fine. It burns correctly. The connection ends. Happily!"
The flight was still going on. On the thirtieth of June, at 1.35, after the orientation of the Soyuz, the braking propulsion system was turned on. After completing the estimated time and losing speed, the ship began to leave orbit. After aerodynamic braking in the atmosphere, the parachute opened normally, the soft landing engines fired, and the descent vehicle smoothly landed in the steppe of Central Kazakhstan, west of Mount Munly.
The instruments of the measuring complex dispassionately recorded the duration of the expedition - 23 days, 18 hours, 21 minutes, 43 seconds. New world record.
Doctor Anatoly Lebedev, who then worked at the Cosmonaut Training Center, says:
“On June 30, at 1.35, Soyuz-11 turned on the braking propulsion system and began its descent to Earth. In our helicopter, we listened carefully to the radio communications of other search groups - who would see the ship first?
Finally, a laconic: “I see! I’ll accompany you!” - and an explosion of voices on the air. All the voices, except... Yes, exactly: one thing was surprising - none of the search service crews could contact the astronauts. Even then we thought: probably the sling antenna was not working, and therefore it was impossible to establish contact with the Soyuz crew.
Finally, we, the doctors, through the helicopter windows saw the white and orange canopy of the ship’s parachute, slightly silvery from the rising sun. We flew exactly to the landing site.
Silently (for us!) the soft landing engines of the Soyuz kicked up a cloud of dust, and the silky “foam” of the parachute system smoothly subsided. We sat down behind the ship, about fifty to a hundred meters away. What happens in such cases? You open the hatch of the descent vehicle, and from there - the voices of the crew. And here - the crunch of scale, the sound of metal, the chatter of helicopters and... silence from the ship.
I had the opportunity to be the first to extract its commander, Georgy Dobrovolsky, from the ship. I knew he was sitting in the middle chair. I won’t lie, I didn’t recognize him: the cosmonauts grew beards during the flight (they had difficulty shaving), and the unusual conditions of descent also apparently affected their appearance. Following Dobrovolsky, we took out Patsaev and Volkov.
Volkov was generally very handsome; his friends at Zvezdny called him Marcello, in honor of Mastroianni, the then and current film idol. Later, with some almost mystical feeling, I found his note in my home “archive” - we played before the flight, did not finish the game, and he wrote on a piece of paper: “I’ll come back and finish the game.” “I’ll be back”... But all this is later.
In the first moments nothing is clear; A quick inspection also did not allow us to immediately give a conclusion about the condition of the crew: what happened during the seconds of radio silence while the descent vehicle’s ball was piercing the atmosphere?! All astronauts have almost normal body temperature.
And, to be honest, it’s not so much a misunderstanding - the thought of tragedy simply didn’t come close to anyone in those seconds. Our entire medical team deployed instantly. The presence of an experienced resuscitator from the Sklifosovsky Institute immediately determined the nature and means of assistance. Six doctors began performing artificial respiration and chest compressions.
One more minute... General Goreglyad, the head of the search and rescue group, asked me, I remember, briefly: “Well?!”
However, there is no need to decipher: he, Goreglyad, needs to report something to the Chairman of the State Commission... This has never happened before: the ship is on Earth, all communication lines work right up to the Kremlin, and we are silent.
We continued to work, using everything we could.
One after another, helicopters landed near the ship, people froze in painful anticipation of news from working doctors. There was amazing silence. Impossible, absolutely impossible for such a moment during a normal landing!..
And again, General Goreglyad more strictly and loudly demanded from the doctors an opinion on the condition of the crew: “This is necessary for the report to the government!”
As if it needs to be repeated!
Even now I cannot forget the moment when my lips uttered a phrase that frightened me: “Tell me that the crew... that the crew landed without signs of life!” This sounded like a death sentence to my dear cosmonaut friends! Who knew that this very tragic formula would later be included in TASS reports. But just an hour and a half ago we heard radio communications from the crew; Then everything went fine until landing!
What happened? Long before the launch, medical experts assumed that after a flight of such duration, there could be “difficulties in bearing overloads” during the descent. But not such a flight ending. All medical workers continued to perform their duties until absolute signs of death of the astronauts appeared..."
A few days later, the results of deciphering the “black box” recordings became known. An analysis of the records of the autonomous recorder of the on-board measurement system showed that from the moment the living compartment was separated - at an altitude of more than 150 kilometers - the pressure in the descent module began to drop and after 30-40 seconds it became practically zero. 42 seconds after depressurization, the astronauts' hearts stopped.
A word from cosmonaut Alexei Leonov: “The error was inherent in the design. The cabin was depressurized during the shooting of the orbital compartment. When installing ball valves, instead of a force of 90 kg, the installers tightened them with a force of 60-65 kg. During the shooting of the orbital compartment, a large overload occurred, which forced these valves to operate, and they crumbled. A hole with a diameter of 20 mm was discovered. After 22 seconds, the astronauts lost consciousness.”
A valve that equalizes the pressure in the cabin with respect to the external atmosphere is provided in case the ship lands on water or lands with the hatch down. The supply of life support system resources is limited, and so that the astronauts do not experience a lack of oxygen, the valve “connects” the ship with the atmosphere. It was supposed to work during landing in normal mode only at an altitude of 4 km, but it worked in a vacuum.
Why did the valve open? After much testing and modeling of various situations, the commission put forward a version of spontaneous discovery, which became the only one. This is essentially the end of the investigation.
The pressure in the astronauts' cabin dropped to almost zero within seconds. After the tragedy, someone from the authorities expressed an idea: they say that the hole that had formed in the shell of the descent module could be closed... with a finger. But doing this is not as easy as it seems. All three were in seats, fastened with seat belts, as required by instructions during boarding. Together with Rukavishnikov, Leonov participated in a simulated landing. All conditions were simulated in the pressure chamber. It turned out that to unfasten the seat belts and close the hole the size of a Soviet-era five-kopeck coin, the astronauts would need more than thirty seconds. They lost consciousness much earlier and could no longer do anything. Dobrovolsky, apparently, was trying to do something - he managed to pull off his seat belts; alas, there was not enough time for more.
The crew descended to the ground without spacesuits. This decision was made personally by Korolev before the launch of Voskhod. And it is impossible to accommodate three people in spacesuits in the Soyuz. However, problems with tightness have not previously arisen in any of the flights of Vostoks, Voskhods, unmanned or manned Soyuz.
After the deaths of Dobrovolsky, Volkov and Patsayev, the cosmonauts began to fly in special suits. Recommendations have been urgently developed to guarantee the safety of people in the event of depressurization of the descent module.
Georgy Timofeevich Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Nikolaevich Volkov and Viktor Ivanovich Patsaev entered the history of astronautics as the first crew of the first orbital station “Salyut”.
Heroic cosmonauts were buried near the Kremlin wall.
From the book 100 Great Air Disasters author Muromov IgorThe Challenger space shuttle disaster On January 28, 1986, the American space shuttle Challenger exploded 74 seconds after liftoff. 7 astronauts died. The Space Shuttle program became the most difficult for NASA. Already the first start of Columbia was postponed
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author author unknownSection one. Structure of the ship and equipment of the upper deck Chapter 1. Structure of a surface ship and submarine 1.1. Structure of a surface ship A warship is a complex self-propelled engineering structure that carries the naval flag of its assigned ship.
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From the ship to the ball From the novel in verse “Eugene Onegin” (1823-1831) by A. S. Pushkin (1799-1837) (chapter 8, stanza 13): And he was tired of traveling, Like everything else in the world, He returned and got, like Chatsky, from a ship to
From the book Dictionary of Modern Quotes author Dushenko Konstantin VasilievichARMSTRONG Neil (Armstrong, Neil Alden, b. 1930), commander of the American spacecraft Apollo 11 87 This is one small step for one man, but a giant step for mankind. Words Armstrong spoke when he walked on the Moon on July 21, 1969
On June 30, 1971, the first crew of the Salyut orbital space station in the history of astronautics, consisting of Georgy Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkov and Viktor Patsayev, died while returning to Earth. This tragic incident became the largest in the history of Russian cosmonautics - the entire crew died...
The Soviet and American space programs operated in conditions of extremely fierce competition. Each side strived at all costs to get ahead of the competitor and become the first. At first, the palm belonged to the USSR: the first launch of an artificial Earth satellite, the first launch of a man into space, the first man in outer space, the first flight of a female cosmonaut remained with the Soviet Union.
The Americans focused on the lunar race and won. Although the USSR had the theoretical opportunity to be the first, the program was too unreliable and the likelihood of disaster was too high, so the Soviet leadership did not dare to risk the lives of its cosmonauts. The Soviet lunar cosmonaut squad was transferred to training under the Docking program for the first flight to the orbital station.
Having safely landed on the Moon, the Americans proved to themselves that they too could do something, after which they became overly interested in the Earth’s satellite. The USSR at that time was already developing a project for a manned orbital station and won another victory in this area, launching its orbital station two years earlier than the United States did.
The Salyut station was planned to be launched into orbit by the beginning of the 24th Congress of the CPSU, but they were a little late. The station was launched into orbit only on April 19, 1971, ten days after the closing of the congress.
"Soyuz-10"
Almost immediately the first crew was sent to the orbital station. On April 24, five days after the station entered orbit, the Soyuz-10 spacecraft launched from Baikonur. On board were the ship's commander Vladimir Shatalov, flight engineer Alexey Eliseev and test engineer Nikolai Rukavishnikov.
This was a very experienced crew. Shatalov and Eliseev had already made two flights on Soyuz spacecraft; only Rukavishnikov was new to space. It was planned that Soyuz-10 would successfully dock with the orbital station, after which the cosmonauts would stay there for three weeks.
But everything didn't go as planned. The ship arrived safely at the station and began docking, but then problems began. The docking port pin engaged with the station, but the automation failed and the correction engines started working, causing the Soyuz to sway and the docking station to break.
There could no longer be any question of docking. Moreover, the entire Salyut station program was in jeopardy, since the cosmonauts did not know how to get rid of the docking pin. It could have been “shot”, but this would have made it impossible for any other ship to dock with the Salyut and would have meant the collapse of the entire program.
Design engineers on Earth got involved and advised installing a jumper and using it to open the lock and remove the Soyuz pin. After several hours, this was finally done - and the astronauts went home.
Crew change
Preparations for the Soyuz-11 flight have begun. This crew was slightly less experienced than the previous one. None of the astronauts have been in space more than once. But the crew commander was Alexey Leonov, the first person to perform a spacewalk. In addition to him, the crew included flight engineer Valery Kubasov and engineer Pyotr Kolodin.
For several months they trained in docking both manually and automatically, because it was impossible to lose face for the second time in a row and return from the flight without docking.
At the beginning of June, the departure date was determined. At a meeting of the Politburo, the date was approved, as was the composition of the crew, which everyone unequivocally certified as the most skillful.
But the unimaginable happened. Two days before the launch from Baikonur, sensational news came: during a standard pre-flight medical examination, doctors took Kubasov an X-ray and discovered a slight darkening in one of the lungs.
Everything pointed to an acute tuberculosis process. True, it remained unclear how it could be viewed, because such a process does not develop in one day, and the astronauts underwent thorough and regular medical examinations. One way or another, Kubasov was not allowed to fly into space.
But both the State Commission and the Politburo have already approved the composition of the crew. What to do? After all, in the Soviet program, cosmonauts prepared for flights in groups of threes, and if one dropped out, then it was necessary to change the entire team, since it was believed that the threes had already worked together, and replacing one crew member would lead to a violation of consistency.
But, on the other hand, no one before in the history of astronautics has changed the crew less than two days before departure. How to choose the right solution in such a situation? There was a heated argument between the curators of the space program.
Assistant to the Air Force Commander-in-Chief for Space Nikolai Kamanin insisted that Leonov’s crew was experienced and if you replace the retired Kubasov with Volkov, who also had experience in space flights, then nothing terrible would happen and the coordination of actions would not be disrupted.
However, designer Mishin, one of the developers of Salyut and Soyuz, advocated a complete change of the troika. He believed that the backup crew would be much better prepared and worked together than the main crew, but which had undergone a change in crew on the eve of the flight. In the end, Mishin’s point of view won.
Leonov's crew was removed and replaced with a backup crew consisting of commander Georgy Dobrovolsky, flight engineer Vladislav Volkov and research engineer Viktor Patsaev. None of them had been in space, with the exception of Volkov, who had already flown on one of the Soyuz.
Leonov's crew took the removal from the flight very painfully. Boris Chertok later recalled the words of designer Mishin: “Oh, what a difficult conversation I had with Leonov and Kolodin!” he told us. “Leonov accused me of allegedly deliberately not wanting to replace Kubasov with Volynov in order to drag him into Volkov's space. Kolodin said that he felt this way until the last day, that he would not be allowed into space under any pretext. Kolodin says: “I am their black sheep. They are all pilots, and I am a rocket scientist."
None of the angry cosmonauts could have imagined that an erroneous X-ray (Kubasov did not have any tuberculosis and later he successfully flew into space) saved their lives. But then the situation escalated to the limit.
Chertok personally observed this picture: “At the State Commission, I found myself next to Kolodin. He sat with his head bowed low, nervously clenching and unclenching his fingers, nodules playing on his face. He was not the only one nervous. Both crews felt unwell. The first was shocked by the removal from flight, the second - by a sudden change of fate.
After the flight, the second crew had to climb the marble staircase of the Kremlin Palace to fanfare and Glinka’s music, and receive heroes’ stars. But there was no joy on their faces."
Flight
The Soyuz-11 spacecraft launched from Baikonur on June 6, 1971. The astronauts were worried not only because two of them had never been in space before, but also because of the magnificent farewell: the day before departure, the mourners staged a real rally at which they gave speeches.
Nevertheless, the launch of the ship took place as usual and without any failures. The astronauts successfully and without problems docked with the orbital station. It was an exciting moment, because they were to become the first earthlings on board the space station.
The cosmonauts were safely accommodated in the orbital station, which, although small, seemed huge to them after the incredibly cramped Soyuz. The first week they got used to the new environment. Among other things, the cosmonauts on the Salyut had a television connection with the Earth.
On June 16, an emergency occurred at the station. The astronauts smelled a strong burning smell. Volkov contacted Earth and reported the fire. The issue of urgent evacuation from the station was being considered, but Dobrovolsky decided to take his time and turn off some devices, after which the burning smell went away.
In total, the astronauts spent 23 days in orbit. They had a fairly rich program of research and experiments. In addition, they had to mothball the station for the next crews.
Catastrophe
In general, the flight went well - no one expected any emergencies. The crew made contact and conducted an orientation. As it turned out, this was the last communication session with the crew.
As expected, at 1:35 the braking propulsion system was activated. At 1:47, the descent module separated from the instrument and service compartments. At 1:49 the crew was supposed to get in touch and report the successful separation of the descent module.
The descent vehicle did not have a telemetry system and no one on Earth knew what was happening to the astronauts. It was planned that immediately after the separation Dobrovolsky would get in touch. The silence on the radio greatly surprised the experts, because the crew was very talkative and sometimes spoke to the Earth much more than the situation required.
The return to Earth took place as planned, without incidents, so at first there was no reason to believe that anything had happened to the crew. The most likely version was a malfunction of the radio equipment.
At 1:54 a.m., air defense systems detected the descent module. At an altitude of 7 thousand meters, the main parachute of the descent vehicle, which was equipped with an antenna, opened. The astronauts were required to contact either HF or VHF channels and report the situation. But they were silent, not responding to requests from Earth. This was already alarming; none of the safely returned Soyuz had problems with communication at this stage.
At about 2:05, the helicopters meeting the descent vehicle discovered it and reported it to the Mission Control Center. Ten minutes later the device landed safely. Externally, the device did not have any damage, but the crew still did not make contact and showed no signs of life. It was already clear that some kind of emergency had occurred, but there was still hope that the astronauts might have lost consciousness, but were still alive.
Immediately after landing, a meeting helicopter landed next to the device, and two minutes later the rescuers were already opening the hatch of the device. Chertok recalled: “The descent vehicle was lying on its side. There was no external damage.
They knocked on the wall - no one responded. The hatch was quickly opened. All three are sitting in chairs in calm poses. There are blue spots on the faces. Bleeding from the nose and ears. They were pulled out of the SA. Dobrovolsky was still warm. Doctors continue artificial respiration."
Attempts by doctors to resuscitate the crew through artificial respiration and cardiac massage were unsuccessful. An autopsy showed that the crew died from decompression sickness caused by a sharp drop in pressure in the descent module.
Investigation
The circumstances of the death clearly indicated that the ship was depressurized. The very next day, studies of the descent module began, but all attempts to detect a leak failed.
Kamanin recalled: “They closed the hatch and all other standard openings in the ship’s hull, created a pressure in the cabin that exceeded atmospheric pressure by 100 millimeters, and... did not find the slightest sign of leakage. They increased the excess pressure to 150, and then to 200 millimeters. Withstood the ship under such pressure for an hour and a half, we were finally convinced that the cabin was completely sealed."
But, if the device was completely sealed, then how could depressurization occur? There was only one option left. The leak may have occurred through one of the vent valves. But this valve opened only after the parachute opened to equalize the pressure, how could it open during the separation of the descent module?
The only theoretical option: the shock wave and explosions of the squibs during separation of the descent vehicle forced the valve opening squib to fire prematurely. But the Soyuz never had such problems (and in general there was not a single case of depressurization on both manned and unmanned ships).
Moreover, after the disaster, experiments simulating this situation were carried out many times, but the valve never opened abnormally due to a shock wave or the detonation of squibs. No experiment has ever reproduced this situation.
But, since there were no other explanations, this version was accepted as the official one. It was stipulated that this event was classified as extremely unlikely, since it could not be reproduced under experimental conditions.
The commission was able to approximately reconstruct the events that took place inside the descent module. After the normal separation of the apparatus, the cosmonauts discovered depressurization, as the pressure was rapidly dropping.
They had less than a minute to find and eliminate her. Crew commander Dobrovolsky checks the hatch, but it is sealed. Trying to detect a leak by sound, the astronauts turn off radio transmitters and equipment. Most likely, they managed to detect the leak, but were no longer strong enough to close the valve.
The drop in pressure was too strong, and within a minute the astronauts lost consciousness, and after about two minutes they were dead. Everything would have been different if the crew had spacesuits. But the Soviet cosmonauts returned in the descent module without them. Both Korolev and Mishin opposed this.
The suits were very bulky, as was the life support equipment they required, and the ships were already too cramped. Therefore, we had to choose: either an additional crew member, or spacesuits, or a radical reconstruction of the ship and the descent module.
Results
The dead cosmonauts were buried in the Kremlin wall. At that time, it was the largest disaster in space in terms of the number of victims. For the first time, an entire crew died. The tragedy of Soyuz-11 led to the fact that flights under this program were frozen for more than two years.
During this time, the program itself was radically revised. Since then, astronauts have been required to return back wearing protective suits. In order to gain more space in the lander, it was decided to abandon the third crew member. The layout of the controls was changed so that the astronaut could reach all the most important buttons and levers without getting up.
After modifications were made, the Soyuz program established itself as one of the most reliable and is still operating successfully.
On June 6, 1971, we witnessed the eighteenth launch of the manned spacecraft Soyuz-11. This happened at 7:55 a.m. at the Baikonur Cosmodrome.
The crew of the Soyuz-11 spacecraft, consisting of commander G. T. Dobrovolsky, flight engineer V. N. Volkov and test engineer V. I. Patsaev, was given a large and responsible task by the State Commission - to dock with the orbital scientific station "Salyut" , go to its premises and carry out the planned scientific and technical research and experiments for many days.
Scientists, engineers, technicians, workers worked day and night near these unique devices, preparing them to perform important work in space orbits.
For the first time in the history of active human exploration of space, our scientists managed to solve a complex scientific and technical problem - to create an orbital manned station. This required years of persistent, persistent work by many teams. We know that in January 1969, as a result of the docking of two manned multi-seat spacecraft Soyuz-4 and Soyuz-5, an experimental space station was created for the first time in the world.
The successful space flight of Soyuz-4 and Soyuz-5 made it possible to solve many scientific and technical problems that are of great practical importance for the creation of future orbital stations.
We know that the human body is affected by many factors during space flight: overloads, vibrations, noise and, of course, weightlessness.
Weightlessness is a big problem for scientists in many countries around the world. We have already said that the astronauts who flew into space and experienced this unusual condition felt differently. Some felt a pleasant lightness, others experienced the illusion of falling, turning upside down, loss of orientation in space, and for some, weightlessness caused severe bouts of “seasickness.” Therefore, it is no coincidence that a number of experiments in space were carried out in the Soviet Union and the United States involving long-term stays of humans and animals in a state of weightlessness.
During a 14-day flight on the Gemini 7 spacecraft in 1965, American cosmonauts Borman and Lovell, as a result of some dehydration, lost 4.3 and 2.7 kilograms in weight, respectively. The cosmonauts experienced irritation of the mucous membrane of the nose and eyes and a short-term decrease in tone; one of them (Bormann) slept restlessly.
In 1966, in the Soviet Union, the Cosmos-110 satellite was launched into the orbit of an artificial Earth satellite with experimental animals, which, 22 days after completing the program, landed on the 330th orbit. It was found that at the beginning of the flight, the animals experienced a decrease in the volume of muscle mass, impaired coordination of movements, rapid pulse, etc. Scientists also determined that at the beginning of the flight there was an increased release of calcium salts from the body, the animals lost weight due to a decrease in muscle mass. weight and some dehydration. It is known that if a person loses 20% of salt, they experience convulsions, and if a person’s body loses 15% of water, he may die.
Long before man's flight into space, different opinions were expressed about the influence of weightlessness on the state of the human body and on his mental activity. During the first flights, the cosmonauts confirmed that this phenomenon indeed brought a lot of unpleasant sensations to some of them.
If the world's first cosmonaut Yu. A. Gagarin, who was in weightlessness for about one hour, performed his functions without much difficulty, then G. S. Titov, as we have already said, suffered this condition with some unpleasant sensations (dizziness, illusions " swimming” with a sharp turn of the head, loss of appetite, etc.). On subsequent flights, the astronauts each endured the state of weightlessness differently. But basically all the cosmonauts who flew survived it without any noticeable deterioration in their health. True, A.G. Nikolaev and V.I. Sevastyanov, after completing an 18-day flight on the Soyuz-9 spacecraft, slowly adapted to earthly conditions. It took them some time to transition to normal conditions of earthly life. For several days, the body of these astronauts adapted to the conditions of weightlessness, after which they were able to perform any operations as easily as on Earth.
From this we can conclude that the process of adaptation to weightlessness during flight in space, like the process of readaptation on Earth, took place gradually among astronauts, in several stages, depending on the individual characteristics of the organism.
As a result of space flights by Soviet and American cosmonauts, a large amount of scientific material has now been accumulated on the effect of weightlessness on human psychophysiological functions. However, it is too early to say that the problem has been solved.
But let's return to the flight of the Soyuz-11 spacecraft. On June 7, the cosmonauts had to carry out the most important stage of the flight - docking. In the morning, on the Soyuz-11 control panel, the crew turned on a special program, with the help of which they were to carry out a rendezvous with the Salyut station. At 7 hours 27 minutes 47 seconds, when the distance between the ship and the station was 6 kilometers, the engine turned on for 20 seconds, and the devices automatically approached each other to within 100 meters. Then the crew carried out all the control of rendezvous and mooring manually. At 8:58 a.m., the docking of the Soyuz-11 spacecraft with the Salyut station was completed. The crew carefully checked the tightness of the connection between the ship and the station. After this, the pressure in their compartments was equalized. Having made sure that everything was normal, test engineer Viktor Patsayev was the first to board the Salyut, followed by the rest of the crew. This happened on June 7 at 10:45 am.
For the first time, a crew was delivered aboard a scientific orbital station by transport ship. Since that time, the first manned orbital scientific station began to operate in space. Station commander Georgy Dobrovolsky reported to Earth that the crew had begun work on board the Salyut.
On the first day of their stay at the station, the crew inspected all its premises and carried out reactivation, and then checked the scientific equipment. A manned scientific orbital station is an entire scientific laboratory. Its length is about 20 meters. The volume of all premises is more than 100 cubic meters. The weight together with the Soyuz-11 spacecraft is about 25 tons. Structurally, the station is designed so that the crew can conduct scientific, technical and medical-biological research and experiments for a long time. To correct the orbit, there are rocket propulsion systems on board.
At 11:02 a.m. on June 8, the crew made the first correction, as a result of which the altitude increased at apogee by 22 kilometers and at perigee by 29 kilometers. The next day, the cosmonauts adjusted the on-board scientific equipment and mothballed some systems on the Soyuz-11 spacecraft. The VShK (wide-angle cosmonaut sight), which is designed for orientation by the Sun and planets, was successfully tested. In addition, the crew carried out measurements of radiation levels on board the station. Each of the astronauts put on a special Penguin suit, which creates a certain load on the human musculoskeletal organs in a state of weightlessness.
So, round by round, the Salyut scientific orbital station continued its flight in space. The station's connection with the Mission Control Center was stable. The astronauts felt good. On June 10, the crew conducted medical and biological studies of the state of the cardiovascular system in zero gravity conditions. Using a special multichannel amplifying-converting device, functional samples were taken from the astronauts to determine the density of bone tissue and blood composition.
The station's onboard systems and scientific equipment worked normally. According to the established schedule, the cosmonauts regularly conducted television reports from on board the station. Flight engineer Vladislav Volkov and test engineer Viktor Patsayev repeatedly performed navigation measurements, based on the results of which the station’s orbital parameters were determined using an on-board digital computer.
At 7 hours 55 minutes on June 24, cosmonauts G. T. Dobrovolsky, V. N. Volkov and V. I. Patsaev, in terms of the duration and range of the space flight, achieved the results that were established over 18 days of flight by A. G. Nikolaev and V. I. Sevastyanov on the Soyuz-9 spacecraft.
Exactly two days later, i.e. June 26, when 20 days of flight had expired, the crew of the manned orbital scientific station became the owner of absolute world record achievements in the duration and range of space flight. By this time, Georgy Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkov and Viktor Patsaev had surpassed, in terms of the specified parameters, the world achievements previously established by their friends Andriyan Nikolaev and Vitaly Sevastyanov in the space flight from June 1 to 19, 1970 on the Soyuz-9 spacecraft. The cosmonauts on the Soyuz-11 spacecraft and the Salyut station made a total of about 340 orbits around our planet, spent more than 480 hours in space and covered a distance of 13,440,000 kilometers. There were less than four days left before the end of the flight program. On June 27 and 28, the cosmonauts once again checked all onboard systems of the station and the Soyuz-11 spacecraft and performed a number of medical and biological experiments. According to the cosmonauts' report, all onboard systems of the ship and station were working normally.
June 29, 1971—last day of flight. An order was received from Earth on board the orbital scientific station to complete the flight and prepare for landing. The cosmonauts, having made sure that all systems of the ship and station were working normally, prepared for landing. G. T. Dobrovolsky, V. N. Volkov and V. I. Patsaev transferred flight magazines and other scientific research materials from the Salyut station to the Soyuz-11 spacecraft. The astronauts took their jobs, strapped themselves in and then checked the operation of all onboard systems of the ship. In the Soyuz-11 compartments the pressure and temperature were normal. All equipment worked fine. Radio communication with the Earth was stable.
At 21 hours 28 minutes, the Soyuz-11 spacecraft was successfully undocking with the Salyut orbital station, which the crew reported to Earth. The Soyuz-11 spacecraft began its independent flight without the Salyut station. All systems of the Soyuz-11 spacecraft functioned normally. The flight of Soyuz-11 in outer space continued for about 4 hours before the automatic orientation system was turned on. At approximately 1 hour 10 minutes on June 30, 1971, the ship's attitude control system was turned on, and 25 minutes later, the braking propulsion system was turned on, having worked for the estimated time. The time has come for the descent vehicle to separate from the instrument and orbital compartments. Since that time, communication with the crew of the Soyuz-11 spacecraft has ceased. The descent module, which contained cosmonauts Dobrovolsky, Volkov and Patsayev, entered the dense layers of the atmosphere. At 2:02 a.m. the parachute system was activated. At an altitude of 9000 meters the parachute opened.
There is no connection with the astronauts. A group of helicopters from the search and rendezvous service was approaching the ship's landing site. Planes were circling in the air. From the Mi-6 helicopter in which we were, it was clearly visible how the cabin of the Soyuz-11 ship was descending smoothly, slowly swaying under the canopy of a large parachute. Near the ground, the soft-landing powder engines turned on. The Soyuz-11 cabin hovered for a moment and slowly sank to the ground.
I write down: “At 2 hours 15 minutes Moscow time, the Soyuz-11 descent vehicle with cosmonauts G. T. Dobrovolsky, V. N. Volkov and V. I. Patsaev landed.” We run to the landing site. The technical support team opens the hatch. We take Georgy Timofeevich Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Nikolaevich Volkov and Viktor Ivanovich Patsaev out of the cabin of the Soyuz-11 spacecraft. Astronauts without signs of life. The doctors did everything that depended on them, but it was too late.
According to the preliminary conclusion of doctor Anatoly Aleksandrovich Lebedev at the landing site, it was established that the crew died from a sharp decrease in pressure in the ship’s cabin. As it turned out later, the crew of Soyuz 11 died as a result of a leak in the ship’s airtightness. USSR pilot-cosmonauts G. T. Dobrovolsky, V. N. Volkov and V. I. Patsaev fully completed the scientific research program. They made a huge contribution to the development of orbital manned flights.
Entries made by astronauts in flight logs, personal reports recorded on magnetic tape, and a large number of film frames filmed in space were studied by scientists.
During the 24 days of the flight, USSR pilot-cosmonauts G. T. Dobrovolsky, V. N. Volkov and V. I. Patsaev completed an extensive range of work of great scientific, technical and national economic practical importance. They conducted tests under flight conditions of the complex Salyut-Soyuz system, which have promising implications for other ships and stations that, following Soyuz-11, will enter the expanses of the Universe.